Supernova
by Echo Alexia
Summary: Bright and beautiful, supernovae can briefly outshine an entire galaxy, before they fade from view forever, and their shockwave changes everything. Nihlus/Shepard
1. Stellar

Supernova

A room with a view. It wasn't much, but it was all Shepard ever asked for. The small porthole in the side of her lodgings was very likely an Intrastellar Wonder as the smallest window known to man, but it was enough. Enough to see Earth, that shithole, in all its smog and cloud-covered glory. Enough to remind her why she'd joined the Alliance. Enough to keep her from thinking about going back.

Instinctively, she tugged on the collar of her navy blues, though there was no level five pollution warning, no reason to wear a mask as she trudged through smoke beneath acid rains. She hadn't known any better at the time. There hadn't been a reason to ask if the air was any good when it was all there was to breathe. But now she knew, and she'd never go back.

The L5 station was as close as she got. The custom's checkpoint for tourists coming in from the Charon relay. Packed to burst with aliens and confiscated contraband, you could hardly take two steps without being mowed down by an overzealous elcor eager to see its first human, your head ringing with the almost imperceptible hum of a translator as a salarian asked if you really didn't have a cloaca, an asari patting you on the shoulder for being unable to reproduce with another woman, of all things.

The station reminded her why she'd left Earth. It also reminded her why she didn't go anywhere else.

Shepard threw herself down on the small cot in her quarters and opened her omnitool. The accelerometers in her fingers itched, and she scratched at them with her thumb. Her omnitool unfortunately read the motion as the zoom function and it was staring very intently at an engorged "**e**" by the time she realized what she was doing.

Sighing, she spasmed her hand until she had zoomed out again and checked her archived message. Being archived, it hadn't changed, and no matter how much she glared at it, it still refused to do so.

Shepard smacked her omnitool off and rubbed the back of her neck, wondering idly what she was going to do now that her plans had been ruined. _You didn't have any_, a voice that sounded conspicuously like her own reminded her.

Granted, the short week she'd have to spend on the station wouldn't be the worst shore-leave she'd ever had…

Her personal terminal rudely interrupted her reflections, and she rolled off the bed and fell onto the floor. The impact shot through her knees and sent a shock of pain through her. With impromptu annoyance, she blamed the caller rather than her impatience. Crawling over to the table, she took stock of the call and quickly took it all back.

"Shepard here," She announced with an irrational amount of guilt. Somehow, she always felt as if Steven knew what she was thinking.

"Shepard, this is Admiral Hackett with Alliance command," The familiar voice, layered with warmth and age, announced needlessly. Who else from Arcturus would contact her? "I take it you're aware of your coming transfer to the Normandy?"

And how her shore leave had been cut short. Again. "Yes, sir," was all Shepard said.

"I won't bother reminding you you'll be upholding the Alliance's image in front of a representative of the Council." Hackett continued, doing just that. "I see you cleared your last psyche evaluation within respectable parameters."  
"Expecting less from a less than respectable soldier?" Shepard snapped before her brain caught up with her mouth and clamped it shut.

"Careful Shepard," Steven's reprimands always sounded like sighs, as if he was always expecting less. "This is a multilateral mission. The Alliance needs you on board and at your best. I need to know you have no conflicts working outside your comfort zone."

"With all due respect, sir, I don't have a comfort zone." _Liar_.

"Understood Shepard."

"… Ste-Hackett." She blurted before he could hang up, "Admiral. Sir… you aren't making sure everyone is on board and at their best, are you?"

"You already know the answer to that question. Lately, Shepard…" He stopped. They both knew how her mission reports came back. Merciless. "You get the job done. I'm just making sure you remember what that job is."

"… I get the feeling there's a lot to this particular 'job'. Sir."

"You didn't hear it from me. Hackett out."

The terminal blinked "Call Ended," merrily at her. Shepard sighed and dropped her head through the holographic keyboard and to the table. She didn't like being kept in the dark. She didn't like a lot of things. Like missing out on her shore leave, being known for xenophobic gang affiliations, or disappointing her mentor with her methods, to name a few.

She stayed that way until her neck began to protest and sat up, rotating her head around on her shoulders. She massaged the back of her neck then ran a hand through her hair. She had to dye it black again. A natural red, a genetic mutation that was nothing short of miraculous when even blonde was rare. _You were born one of us,_ Finch's voice leered in the back of her mind. She shut it out.

She was not a xenophobe. If anything she was a xenophile. She liked aliens. She knew a lot about aliens.

_You know how to kill them,_ returned a voice in the back of her head.

Shepard ignored it. Standing up abruptly she paced about the room, feeling cagey. A shakedown run that wasn't a shakedown run. A warning that wasn't a warning. She pulled at her Alliance blues and felt uncomfortable. _Red's your color_. Shepard stripped before she realized what she was doing, then stood stupidly and nakedly in the middle of her rented room.

Digging through the chest embedded in the wall she pulled out a similar outfit, only black. _Only better_. Changed and decidedly more comfortable, she stared back out the impossibly small window at Earth.

She was more than capable of working with aliens. She spent her shore leave with aliens. _You spend your shore leave near aliens_, the voice corrected her. Shepard shook her head. She needed to get out of this room. She should go. Go where?

Keying the lock on her door, she left her room and wandered idly throughout the halls of the station. It wasn't as though Terra Firma banners hung from the hotel she'd chosen, even if it was mostly populated by humans. And why not? This was a human station.

Walls of cold metal and plastic glittered with holographic banners, giving directions to shuttles to Earth, Mars, Charon, and other locations. Others advertised shopping centers and kiosks filled with half-assed souvenirs, levo-amino only bars, and all the other wonders of an interstellar airport.

Shepard had almost convinced herself she was as alien-friendly as the L5 station when she stepped onto the nearest elevator and was greeted with a proudly shimmering Terra Firma sign that seemed as obscene as an old world Nazi symbol.

Goddamnit.

Thus, she found herself standing at the doors to OmniTonic, the only bar on the station that boasted drinks for every known alien race. The small space on the station was rented out to an enterprising volus (which seemed an oxymoron) and the best - only - place she could think of to prove to herself she had an open mind and a closed past.

The dance floor was littered with psyotic users, shifting through the colors of the rainbow in tune with the music. The pulse of the bass quickly settled on her heart, and she shuffled awkwardly through the dance floor to reach a better spot to scope the scene. Strobe lights lit up the particles lingering on the air and danced across alien skins.

Volus were out, obviously. An elcor was swaying drunkenly nearby, and Shepard had to smother a laugh at the thought of how many water-cooler conversations she could kill with that one. Asari… too blue, too easy. A salarian was fidgeting by the bar, and just remembering her earlier thoughts on them made her shudder.

This was ridiculous. So she had no interest in other species. That wasn't xenophobic, it was biological. And if she didn't know any aliens it was simply because she'd never had the chance. _You have one now_, the previously prejudice voice argued. Traitor.

Go out, meet an alien, make a fool of yourself, and go to sleep with a clear conscience. Except there was no one here she wanted to meet. Well if Shepard couldn't sleep easy maybe she just wouldn't sleep at all-and she just realized what that implied.

Grumbling to herself, she shouldered her way to the bar when she noticed what-who, damnit, who- was beside the salarian. A turian sat hunched and growling over his omnitool, emerald eyes glaring. White face paint adorned an annoyed face and a half-finished drink was at his side. He tugged once on the collar of his simple black shirt as if it were suffocating him, before force-quitting his omnitool altogether.

Shepard was immediately struck by how familiar it all was. The voice was dead silent. No basic training on turian weak-points and choke holds came to mind, no alien or enemy insults. Not quite aware of what she was doing, Shepard threw herself onto the stool next to him. Just another person, another omnitool, another…

"Bad day?" She asked with a smile. The turian glanced up at her intrusion. He was red...

And red was her color.


	2. Gravitation

Gravitation

"Welcome to Alliance Military Database…" The VI announced pleasantly, spreading her hands, "A secure connection is required to access profiles." Abruptly, as though the extranet itself were spiting him, half the marine's virtual clothing dissolved, and her profile went from friendly to too friendly. "On the floor and give me twenty, soldier!"

Nihlus growled in aggregation and swiped the pop-up and its ads for "women who like big guns," away, making a mental note to upgrade his extranet filters. He tapped into Earth's comm buoy and the original VI continued obliviously. "Establishing secure connection…"

"Secure connection confirmed," She said almost immediately. He was hardly surprised. What passed for secure in Alliance Space was questionable at best. "Please login to access profiles," A few taps at the haptic interface allowed him SPECTRE clearance, at which he scrolled to reach his target. "Access granted, welcome agent-Warning!" The VI sputtered to keep up. "Data corruption. Profile reconstruction in prog-logging you out."

Nihlus sighed again and force-quit his omnitool. Technically he had no reason to recheck Commander Shepard's files. He'd already made local copies of those pertinent to his mission and all he'd need as a mentor. The only drawback of the matter was he had no recent photo of said Commander, and with the Alliance Database currently in maintenance he was unlikely to get one before he met her in person.

Which reminded him of why he'd come here - to get a feel for the woman behind the service record. It seemed outrageously presumptuous when he couldn't even find out what she looked like. The fruitless search and equally fruitless trip rubbed him the wrong way. Technically, he was on leave until the Normandy arrived, but in his opinion, Spectres were never on leave. If there wasn't a job to do, he was doing his job wrong.

"Bad day?" A voice beside him broke into his thoughts. He stopped rubbing the back of his neck to glance at the human sitting next to him in the bar. His database search had gone to his earpiece, so his growling must have disturbed her.

"You could say that," Nihlus rolled his head and glanced to his left to see if he could escape. He accidentally nudged the salarian beside him in the process, who grumbled loudly and made a show of turning his back to him. No such luck, he was trapped.

"Can I buy you a drink?" The human on his right continued. Even if he didn't resent humans, he didn't always understand them. Why they always took bars to be social occasions, for one.

"Is that a threat?" He quipped, spreading his mandibles to show he was joking, when it occurred to him she wouldn't understand the expression.

"Dextro, I promise," The human flashed her flat teeth at him. It was hardly menacing. He rolled his shoulders again and finally looked her over. She was barefaced, but it hadn't bothered him with Saren, and it didn't bother him now. Her eyes and the top half of her hair were red as fire, the lower half black as ink. Curious. He'd never seen such a style before.

"A supernova," He allotted at length. The human raised an eyebrow at him.

"Seriously?"

"I'm always serious." He managed to hold his face very still.

"One supernova," the human called loudly across the bar. The bartender snorted and several patrons eyed her. Belatedly she realized judgment for the drink's name fell on her. "You're a cruel sort of person," she chuckled, turning in her seat to face him.

"You don't even know me." He looked affronted.

"I'd like to." She countered immediately.

"One supernova," The bartender interrupted, placing the drink between them. "Get you another?" He gestured to the shot glass the woman was cradling like a lifeline. Nervous? Alcoholic? Perhaps both. And his exit was still blocked.

"Sure," she agreed with immediate predictability. "So Supernova, what's your story?"

Nihlus swirled his drink in his hand, half-listening. Alien, alcoholic, and in the way. A bad day indeed.

"And if there's not one?" At least his drinks would be free.

"Then less time spent talking. But I bet you have one." He deemed not to reply. The human didn't need him to. "You have the same clan markings as Councilor Valern. Must have gotten you a lot of respect."

That was unexpected. He knew the difficulties of distinguishing fine details on other races, and couldn't help but be slightly impressed. Slightly. "Just the opposite." She looked more interested, if possible. "But while we're on markings, why is your hair two colors?"

She ran a hand through it at the mention. "Because I keep forgetting to make it one." Conversation stalled briefly, but at least they both realized those topics were off-limits. She broke the silence with a nod towards the mass of gyrating bodies, glowing with psyotics and high off red sand, "You wanna dance?"

"I don't dance." He returned immediately. He'd seen a torrent of elbows and knees slaughtering their way through the dance floor earlier and he had a sneaking suspicion of whose they'd been. Belatedly, he realized accepting would have been an easy way to reach the door. _Do you still want to?_

She leaned her elbows on the counter, poor graces in any culture, excluding Salarian, not in the least put off. This woman was as stubborn as he was. "So what do you do?"

"I'm a turian, you'd think my profession would be obvious, miss-"

"Tequila."

"Pardon?" He blinked.

She pointed to her empty shot glass. "I could use more tequila."

A laugh strangled in his throat. He felt as though he should be more annoyed, but all he felt was amused. He waved the bartender over and slid his credit chit across the counter. "Tequila it is." He could polish enough gizzard to get through one conversation. The way she muscled through his comfort zone, he wasn't sure he had a choice. _Do you want one?_

"So you're a soldier," She grinned, wide enough to reveal canines this time. They were sharp. He tried to ignore the similarities. He hummed his agreement and took another sip of his drink. "Here on leave, looking for trouble…"

"Looking for trouble?" Nihlus started.

The human pointed to the slight bulge in his jacket. "You came to a bar armed," Had he? His sidearm was like another limb by now. He could no more forget to bring it than he could remove it without significant trauma.

She had to be extremely familiar with turian anatomy to notice to something so slight. Nihlus ignored what that implied. "Expecting trouble. Not looking for it. Are you always this forward?"

"Is it working?"

_Yes._ "Maybe," turian women made her look chaste. A lingering look in the hallway was all it took to derail into blowing off steam, before that derailed into an exclusive relationship. At least, that was how it usually worked for men who weren't from outpost colonies and who blindly followed orders rather than their own initiative. "So what do you do, Tequila?"

"You're looking at a fellow soldier," The pop-up immediately came to mind and he shook it out of his head. He was still having trouble deciding if he found her intriguing or annoying. Maybe both.

A few more Supernovas would decide for him. He finished his drink and waved the bartender over, "You'd think Arcturus would be a more typical place for shore-leave."

"You'd think," She tilted her head to the side. The bartender set a bottle beside her that looked to have a Threshermaw larva floating at the bottom. Nihlus was instantly and utterly enthralled. "This is… closer to home."

"And yet…"

"And yet what?" She stared at him as if she didn't understand how a turian was anything but closer to home. Part of him, part of him that sounded suspiciously like his mentor, was insisting this was a house in an Invictus jungle. It seemed like a good idea, but only to him. There was an angle. There was a catch… There was a woman interested in him. For the first time in depressing.

Nihlus tore his eyes away from what he still suspected was a Threshermaw larva and focused on the human again. If their species had potential, if Commander Shepard had potential, then why not this? He opened his mouth to reply, when he noticed a glint amidst the crowd. A group of humans against the far wall were glaring at the two of them and their engrossing conversation. The group traded nods, and then they traded knives.

Ah yes.

That was why.


	3. Disruption

Disruption

Shepard was flirting with a turian. And the turian was flirting back. The concept was so completely… well… alien, that her mind hadn't finished processing it yet and was letting her mouth run on autopilot.

Her mouth didn't seem to need her brain in any case. Her inner-voice would have told her she didn't use it much to begin with. A rational mind wouldn't have sat down next to a recent enemy race and started hitting on them. A rational mind also wouldn't have met a fascinating man who was eying her up with an intensity that made her want to shiver.

"And yet what?" She leaned closer and he rested an arm on the counter as he put his drink down, now empty. His second? Third? His arm stayed on the table and the distance between them lessened for it.

He had a gleam in his eye that translated across any cultural barrier. They'd abandoned any concept of personal space, enough that when he exhaled she felt hot breath on her face. He smelled exotic, of hot peppers and a hint of cinnamon, and it was enough to mask the stale odor of dozens of sweaty bodies and piled on perfumes that marked any nightclub.

The words 'Do you want to get out of here?' were on her tongue when he opened his mouth to reply. She imagined if he were human she would have silenced him with a kiss then and there. As it were, with no lips to speak of, she simply waited for him to continue, then wished she hadn't.

His eyes darted away from her face and he stood up, forcing her to do the same. "Nothing," He placed a hand on her shoulder and maneuvered her out of his way. "Excuse me,"

Blinking, Shepard stood dumbstruck where he had left her. Several jostles from the crowd finally kick-started her brain back into action with a muttered "Figures." She sunk back into her seat, trying to pick him out in the crowd, and caught a glimpse of red as he left the club.

He hadn't even pulled the Restroom Card. Just up and left. Turians. Men. Turian men? _Well this whole evening had been entirely counter-productive. _The bartender moved to refill her shot-glass with an _'Oh, Honey'_ look on his face. She shot him a glare for his pity and snarled, "Leave the bottle."

Contrary to most she'd encountered, Shepard liked tequila. You drank it straight, and it was straight up with you. It was an all too uncommon way to drink it, but at Basic in Macapa, Brazil, they'd sworn by it.

Shepard sighed and stared at the bottle. At the moment, she wanted to swear at it. Shepard sipped idly at her drink, and let her eyes sweep over the bar again. No one else looked remotely interesting. Grinding against one another on the dance-floor, attempting (and failing) to look inconspicuous doing red sand in the booths…

A hand with too many fingers fell heavily on her shoulder, "Woman like you needs a real man," The hand, rightly fearful of being permanently altered to the correct amount, retreated as quick as it came. The man it belonged to unfortunately did not do the same, and took the now-vacant seat beside her.

"Sounds great, you know one?" She sneered, barely looking him over. He looked vaguely familiar. She attributed it to him being human, or what passed for one, and ignored the feeling.

"Don't be like that," He grinned at her. His mouth had too many teeth. She could fix that… "You play hard to get, it's prolly why he left."

"And it's why you're going to leave too." It wasn't a question.

"Come on," He whined. Like a child. Shepard hated children. "This late, you're looking at a boring night otherwise. Don't want that do you?"

"Why not? S'how my shore-leaves usually go." Well, except that one time…

"I can think of other ways this could go," He leered.

"So can I," Shepard glared at him and shifted in her seat, turning her back to him. It took all the restraint and tequila in her not to punch him.

"I knew it! I told the others you liked 'im cause he was a damn cuttlebone! Fu-" Shepard punched him.

He stumbled back from the force and the shock and crashed into the salarian behind him, who squeaked "Hey, watch it!"

"You watch it, fishboy!" Her unwarranted solicitor spat. Literally, spat. Blood and saliva sprayed across the salarian's face, who's wide mouth split into a grimace of disgust as he backpedaled and scrambled for the napkins lining the bar. "You're gonna regret that," He growled at her through a mouthful of blood and humiliation. "Shouldn't have come into Red territory, xenofucker."

At the word 'red' Shepard stood up abruptly. So fast, in fact, that her momentum caused the entire station to spin, or at least that was what it seemed like when the bar spun in a 360 around her. She sat - _fell _back into her seat with a thud. "Damnit, tequila, I trusted you."

As the world came back into a bleary focus, Shepard finally noticed why the man-child had seemed familiar. His hair was dyed a gaudy red, and there was a distinctly gutter-trash feel to him. She didn't recognize him specifically, but she knew all the signs of her old gang, and she doubted it could have been a coincidence.

Her mind swam with tequila and questions. Since when had the Reds gotten enough power and influence to get off-world? Did they know she was here? Would any of them know her? Recognize her? How many were there?

All of these paled in comparison to her primary question: Where was her turian? The man continued to rant and rave at her, drawing more than a few stares. Shepard ignored him, and with slightly more care and determination than before, surged out of her chair and towards the door.

Or rather she would have, had a five-finger hand not clamped down on her arm. Shepard stared at the offending appendage, and followed it up to its source. He'd progressed from insults to a full blown monologue, about aliens restricting humanity's place in the galaxy and alien sympathizers helping them to do it. It seemed so out of context that for a moment she wondered if he was serious.

Despite his grip on her arm, his face was dead-serious and red with fury and blood. Shepard was vaguely aware she was an example he was using for his speech, now directed at the entire bar. She let her gaze sweep over the other patrons, who watched the gang-member with expressions ranging from mild-disgust to outright horror.

Was this what she'd sounded like when she was a Red? Was this what she'd been like? Shepard glared. She hated him very suddenly, for being a mirror she wasn't ready to look in. She called him an idiot. He called her a whore. She punched him, and a bar-fight started.

The bouncer reacted immediately. A massive krogan, he charged through the crowd and put an end to the fight as swiftly as it had begun. Humans and aliens alike were tossed aside like ragdolls, some of them, sadly, just for the misfortune of being in the way. "No fighting!" He bellowed ironically as his war cry.

Patrons skittered back along the floor whimpering pitifully, but his great head swung away from them all and settled Shepard and the Red with a steely glare. He picked both of them up by their collars, and carried them limp and unresisting through the crowd, like a wild animal holding its children by their scruffs.

With a huff, he tossed them bodily outside, which is where Shepard wanted to go in the first place. "Fight well, but not in here," He grumbled, retreating back into OmniTonic.

The two of them sized each other up, then quickly took the krogan up on his offer. The gang member dove at her, and with a reaction time that would have made Drill Instructor Ellison proud, Shepard screamed and smashed her elbow into his face. It was dirty, it was bloody, it was Red, and the Reds always brought out the worst in her.

The blow sent him crashing to the floor, and the rush of adrenalin sent a primal thrill up her spine. She stared down at him in triumph, not caring if he was unconscious or dead. Standard military procedure was to check for survivors, and restock ammo and power cells from the fallen. Standard Reds procedure was a double-tap and rummage for creds. Shepard shook herself out of her memories and did neither.

She had to check on the turian. Just because he'd walked out on her didn't mean he deserved whatever the Reds would do to him. _You know what they'll do to him. You'd have done it too once_. "No I wouldn't have," Shepard growled at the body at her feet. It was still and silent. Unconscious or dead. Human or turian…

A yell from down the hall followed by a thud drew her drunken-focus away from the body. A hate-crime because she'd wanted to talk to get to know an alien. It'd be her fault if something happened to him. It'd be her gang if something happened to him.

"No, not my gang, not anymore," Shepard mumbled to herself, and took off in the direction of the yell, "Please be okay. I'm not a Red. Red's not my color."


	4. Blackhole

Blackhole

Nihlus made a quick decision that, he realized, was not the best of decisions. However it was, more importantly, an honest decision. Nihlus could have promised her he'd be right back, but he couldn't be certain that he would, and he wasn't the type to make idle promises. So instead, he simply said "Excuse me," and left the bar, knowing the gang would follow.

It was preferable to the alternative. If he left with her, and the group decided to try something, he'd have to worry about her safety, and having others rely on him, or vise versa, just wasn't his style. In all likelihood he'd ruined his chances for a pleasant evening, but it was easier to sleep with a clear conscience than another lonely soul.

Nihlus hardly needed to listen to the footsteps behind him as he left the club, the group was making their presence and intent obvious. Though he could tell there were less than the seven he'd seen in the club following him. So he'd already come to a stop when, with almost boring predictability, the missing three emerged around the corner to block his path.

"You picked the wrong club, cuttlebone," The one in the center growled. All of them had hair dyed an offensive shade of red, neon and unnatural. Not at all the easy crimson the woman had for some reason wanted to cover up.

"Actually, this is the only club that serves dextro drinks." Nihlus drawled, bored.

"First you take our clubs, and now you take our women?" The outrage in his voice elevated, as if OmniTonic served dextro drinks specifically for Nihlus. The thought of special privileges for him on the human homeworld was mildly bemusing. "You aliens are all the same; you come to our world and think you can do whatever you want. Well you forget, this is our world, our rules." The redhead kept talking, Nihlus stopped listening.

Saren's voice in his head drowned out the gang member's. "_There are two simple rules you should always remember. The first, is never kill someone without a reason_."

Nihlus had never encountered a human gang before. They weren't entirely different from turian ones, or any races' for that matter. Prejudice and fear cemented in the impressionable minds of a species' youth. Commander Shepard had been an orphan on Earth, raised on the streets, likely around gangs like these. Nihlus made a mental note to make any residual prejudice the first thing to break her of. Spectre's protected the entire galaxy, not just their own species. Sometimes he'd felt as though Saren forgot that.

"Two things we're gonna do, cuttlebone. The first, is teach you a lesson." The sound of a switchblade being drawn caught his attention. He marked it as the man behind him on the left.

"And the second?" Nihlus asked of both the gang member and his old mentor.

"Then we're gonna teach her a lesson." He leered.

"_You can always find a reason to kill someone_." Saren's voice chorused in the back of his mind.

The speaker lunged with a clumsy right hook. Nihlus spun and grabbed him by the wrist, twisting his arm around his back and trading places with him. The man with the switchblade had dove simultaneously, and consequently drove his blade into his friend's chest. The gang was momentarily shocked, and it was all the time Nihlus needed to throw both men into the remaining two behind him.

The two in the front recovered and leapt towards him with more brawn than brains. Nihlus dropped to one knee and swept them off their feet with a drop-kick to the back of their knees. It would have been an impossible move for a human to hit them both, but turians had more reach.

Their momentum worked against them and they crashed into their comrades, just as they'd been about to recover.

He could have easily drawn his sidearm then and fired six shots to eliminate the threat. He could have just as easily pulled the Spectre card and sent them running. He was debating which when he realized the flaw in his plan. Six shots, six men. He was missing one.

The absentee had likely stayed in the bar to antagonize the woman. Nihlus frowned, then started tying the groaning gang together with their belts and any other rope-substitute on them. He'd have to go back to the bar, and he'd rather not have to deal with a human screaming that he'd murdered half a dozen men, then explain to her and the authorities that Spectre status gave him the authority to remove threats to security as he saw fit.

A gang member struggled; Nihlus kicked him. This was tedious. Saren would have killed them by now.

The thrum of heavy booted footfalls drew his attention from down the hall. While he hoped it was security – where _were_ they? – he doubted his luck would take a turn for the better.

A flash of red had him on his feet, but he stilled reaching for his weapon when he recognized Tequila stumbling over herself in her haste to get away from OmniTonic. Nihlus tensed, on alert for the last gang member, but to his surprise no one seemed to be following her.

She didn't seem to be capable of halting her momentum, so Nihlus caught and steadied her before she careened into him. "Supernova," She grinned lopsidedly, "Fancy meeting you here." She glanced at him, then at the bodies littering the floor. Nihlus inwardly flinched, waiting for a scream that never came. "Oh good," She continued, turning away from the gang disinterestedly, "You're okay."

Well that was… refreshing. Then he noticed the alcohol coating her breath. "You're drunk."

"Say that again when I'm sober," She finally waved away his help standing on her own two feet.

"I will," They looked at each other for a long moment before they started laughing, a reprieve quickly interrupted by a shout from down the hall.

"Stop right there, criminal scum!" Ah, there was security. Late and loud, as per usual. A man, spacer pale, with a helmet obscuring most of his face, rushed towards them with his gun drawn, hollering into his comm for backup. "Put down your weapons and take three steps back."

"I'm unarmed," Nihlus sighed, annoyed. Well, there was his sidearm, but that didn't really count.

"Then how the hell do you explain this?" He nudged one of the gang members with his toe. The man whimpered pitifully. Nihlus turned his palms up and unsheathed his talons in explanation, mandibles flickering in annoyance.

"A citizen's arrest," The woman beside him interrupted for him, sparing him from having to invoke the Council like the right hand of the Hierarchy. "They assaulted him." She continued.

The man relaxed, lowering his weapon, but eyed her suspiciously. He must have noted the collective red hair color. "_They_ assaulted him?"

"I didn't do nothing man!" One of the more coherent gang members protested, straining against his hands belted to his companion's feet.

"They assaulted us," Nihlus clarified, putting an arm around the woman's waist. To her credit, she didn't flinch, and instead leaned into the contact.

"Ah hell," The security guard caught on immediately. He waved them over to him, away from the gang pile, and spoke a command into his omnitool once they'd crossed some invisible threshold. Gates crashed down from the ceiling, cutting off the small section with the gang from the rest of the hall.

"Impressive," Nihlus murmured. He didn't give idle praise.

"Anti-riot gates, our newest security upgrade until backup gets here. Look, I know this must be difficult for the two of you. We've had some trouble with hate-crimes against couples lately, and the station's really grateful to you for catching these guys."

"There's another outside OmniTonic. The entrance closest to here." Tequila chimed in, causing Nihlus to raise an eyeridge at her.

"I-see…" The security blinked at the unexpected information. He stared at her in bewilderment for several moments before continuing. "Well, if I could just get a statement from the both of you…" His backup chose that moment to arrive, crowding around either side of the riot gates. The squad leader mumbled a command into his omnitool that caused the gates to lift, and in the commotion the two of them escaped.

Nihlus steered her, willingly, down several twists and turns, past aliens and humans rushing to see what the trouble was about. They stopped in an empty alley on the opposite side of OmniTonic, an elevator patiently waiting for them to choose a destination buried in the far wall. A spacerat skittered away from them, squeezing itself into a ventilation shaft with a broken cover. Nihlus noted it with disinterest, idly realizing why this was gang territory.

His human's laughter broke him out of his contemplations, she was leaning heavily against his side, and he couldn't help but chuckle as well. "Unarmed my ass," She giggled, giving him a poke that was more of a punch.

"A citizen's arrest?" He countered with a snort.

"It worked, didn't it?"

"It did," He consented, "The one you mentioned-"

"Broke his nose and then some." She glared at the glistening gray walls, and it looked for a moment like she was glaring at the holographic OmniTonic sign lining one. Granted, it was a terrible ad. 'Your omnitool does everything, don't you deserve a bar that serves every drink? OmniTonic!' She tore her eyes away from the sign and glanced back up at him. "Is that why you left?"

"Yes," Quick and to the point. Her tone was completely blameless, but he felt the need to elaborate anyway, "I was going to come back-"

"I didn't like the atmosphere in there anyway," She waved away his explanation with a devilish look in her eye.

"My apartment is much more…" Nihlus' brain died on him. On an adrenaline high from his fight, a drunken high from his drinks, and a hormonal high from her proximity, his brain decided he must not be doing anything that required words anymore.

"Much more." Tequila affirmed with a grin. Thankfully, his brain was right. The two of them dragged each other to the elevator, and Nihlus keyed in the floor of his apartment. He leaned his back against the railing and pulled her towards him, raking her back and waist with his talons. Her hands immediately went to his neck, and he anticipated a strange sensation of too many fingers on his nerves, but felt only two sharp claws on either side drawing themselves across his skin.

He was wondering how much he'd had to drink that he was hallucinating her as a turian, when he realized she was only using two fingers on each hand for his benefit. With a growl, he buried his face in her neck and nipped at her flesh, only to growl again when the elevator chimed the right floor.

Unlike on the Citadel, human designed elevators were rushed, to get to their destination as quickly as possible with no time to enjoy the view. It seemed everything they did was rushed. The irony of that thought didn't escape him as he stumbled hastily towards his apartment with one.

Said human pulled a small flask from a pocket in her jacket and took a swig. "You want some?" She offered as he fumbled with the lock on his door, then quickly wrenched her hand away as she belatedly realized the amino difference. "No don't!"

Nihlus laughed deep in his throat, "I wasn't going to." The door swished open and the two of them stumbled towards his bed in the back of his apartment, but didn't quite make it and fell on the couch instead.

Neither of them could be bothered to notice or care. He caught her as she tumbled onto him and tore off her jacket, running his talons along her sides and enjoying the sounds she made before she yanked on his shirt. Scooting up, she leaned away from him as he pulled it off obligingly and he couldn't help the manly swell of pride as she whistled appreciatively. She ran all ten nails down the carapace of his chest, perhaps hoping to make up for being kept from his skin. "I'm gonna give you one hell of a First Contact," She promised, pushing him down to the couch.

She stripped off her shirt with deliberate slowness, before crawling lithely over him to lean into him and…

And stay there. She'd passed out. Nihlus groaned and dropped his head back on the armrest, mindful of his fringe. And that was why he didn't make idle promises. Nihlus threw his arm over his head, blocking out the light of his rented room. He was tempted to just sleep it all off, when he realized she couldn't possibly be comfortable, soft flesh balanced against carapace and spurs.

With a sigh, he rolled out from under her, intending to leave her on the couch, when the slight of his absence had her rolling off it. Catching her before she crashed onto the floor, he tried to resettle her in some stable position.

It didn't work. She slid, she slipped, limbs fell off the couch, limbs hit his face, his sides, his chest. Nihlus was growling furiously by the time he managed to get her twisted into a stationary position. He hovered for several minutes, expecting her to topple, but nothing happened. Letting out a whoosh of hot air in relief, he tiptoed away from her and stepped on the discarded flask. He glared at it, and gave it a vicious kick, blaming it for the ending to his evening.

With a sigh, he scratched the back of his neck to remove the phantom feeling of her fingers trailing over it. Retrieving a blanket from his bed, he draped it over her, half-expecting the contribution to send her rolling wildly across his living room. Nothing happened, and he was about to drag himself to his bed when he decided he needed a cold shower first.

When he finally threw himself down to sleep, he reevaluated everything that had happened. He'd gotten insight into Commander Shepard's background, had a good fight, met an intriguing woman, and even brought her home with him. He could potentially spend tomorrow, or even the rest of his leave with her. Nihlus pushed himself up on his elbows so he could see her on the couch in the living room, which doubled as the bedroom in his one-room apartment. Bad day, she'd asked… no, it hadn't been a bad day at all. He'd have to get her name, he decided as he fell asleep.


	5. Pulsar

Pulsar

"Ah, you're awake." Well, that was news to her. Shepard groaned and pushed herself upright, blearily taking in her surroundings. She wasn't in her apartment, though nor was she face-down in the bathroom of OmniTonic. Her memory fogged by her dreams and hangover, she ran on autopilot, throwing off a blanket – blanket?

No restraints, no weapon, no cover. Flanging voice - turian, weapons unknown, threat level-

There was no threat level. Supernova. She was in his apartment, he was in the kitchen.

Shepard warily made her way across the living room, which heralded an actual window, she noted with no small amount of envy. Settling herself onto a stool, she stared at the brilliant image of Earth stretched beneath the glass. It looked like a different world from here. The clouds seemed whiter, the oceans bluer…

Shepard was so distracted by the view she didn't hear her turian moving about in the kitchen, and almost fell off the stool in shock when his painted face popped out of nowhere. She swore colorfully and glared at him.

"I had to go out for this," He announced, ignoring her, and slid a plate across the counter dividing the two rooms. "I didn't have anything you could eat-" He stopped and chuckled to himself, "Well, no food at least," Shepard ignored him. "But the salesman assured me it was a human delicacy."

Shepard blinked down at the meal her turian had placed in front of her. A dubious sallow mass stared innocently back up at her. Real, honest-to-God eggs would have cost a fortune. Even vat-grown was pushing it. Powdered then. And he'd ruined them. Somehow.

The bottom was burnt to a crispy removable layer. The top seemed was torn between liquid and solid. They even smelled like ass. Shepard held her breath and leaned across the counter to peer at him in the kitchen. He was distracted with making his own breakfast. Maybe she could dump them somewhere… but where?

"Last night was that good huh?" She said distractedly, and glanced about the room. The kitchen was divided from the living room by the counter she sat at. Everything was made of the same steely gray that coated most Earth stations. His couch was black, as was the bed and cushions of the stools. Solids were a human favorite in décor, and the apartment was thankfully human in design. She'd seen turian art, and the less said of it, the better.

The far side of the living room dissolved into the bedroom, a few meandering stairs leading to the bed smugly centered on a raised dais. The only other room she took for the restroom. Shepard suddenly felt green with envy and not with nausea. His own kitchen! Her hotel room boasted all of a cooler and a military cot. Even her World Wonder Window was outshined.

"You made quite the impression." He sounded like he was chuckling. Shepard resolved to figure out why later, right now she had to get rid of her eggs before they got rid of her. Her eyes settled on a nearby planter. Genius.

Grabbing the plate, she leaned out of her stool and shook the offending muck into the pot. "I've never worked so hard to get a woman into be-"

Her turian stopped mid-sentence. Shepard turned her head to see him standing at the exit to the kitchen, staring at her with a completely blank expression. Shepard's mouth hung open in surprise, while her plate hung half-buried in dirt.

"You put eggs in my plant." He noted with no small amount of disbelief.

"I put eggs in your plant." She repeated.

He looked dumbstruck. "Why did you put eggs in my plant?"

"… I don't like eggs." She tried lamely.

"And my plant?"

"I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

"So you hurt my plant?"

"The lesser of two evils."

"But now you've done both."

Shepard huffed, finally moving, and put the now-empty plate back up on the counter. "You're feelings aren't hurt."

"Crushed, in fact." He corrected her.

They stared at each other for several moments, when much to her dismay, Shepard broke first and started laughing. He shook his head with a light chuckle and took a seat next to her, his own meal a strange mixture of burnt solids and liquids. Maybe it was turian cooking. Or maybe he was just a bad cook. Probably both. Shepard scooped the ruins eggs back onto her plate, and dumped them into the trash compactor.

"Do you mind if I…" She gestured to his kitchen with her empty plate.

"Be my guest," He shrugged, waving the strangest looking utensil Shepard had ever seen in acquiescence.

He'd left the box out, so she picked it up and squinted at the instructions on its side. Shepard was no chef, but she was certain she could manage better than the culinary catastrophe her turian had created. If nothing else, she was certain she couldn't take the blow to her pride if she failed.

"So last night…" She tried again as she made eggs half-dressed in his kitchen. Both her memory lapse and choice in lingerie annoyed her. She tugged idly at her sports bra. Sexy Shepard. Real Sexy. Then again, female turians didn't have breasts, so maybe it was.

"A night to remember," Supernova offered evasively, after taking just long enough to chew his food to be grating but not long enough to call him out on it.

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing happened," He allotted at last, cleaning up his plate. Fast eater. Good fighter. Clearly a soldier like he'd claimed. Couldn't believe everything you heard on a one-night stand. _Or everything you heard from a turian?_ "You passed out on the couch," He placed the dish into the automated washer, a deliberate pause. "I slept on the bed."

He stopped behind her; Shepard turned and pointed her yoke covered spatula at him, raising an eyebrow. "So it means I owe you one."

He smirked. At least she assumed he was smirking. "So it would seem." Shepard was momentarily thrown. She looked a mess, had been trashed then crashed in his apartment, and was probably overstaying her welcome making, _ruining_, breakfast. Despite all this, he seemed ready and willing to pick up right where they left off. She'd have to get his name.

Shepard grinned, a little lopsidedly. It wasn't everyday you woke up hung-over with a stranger and called it a good morning.

It was then, when they were standing there smiling stupidly at each other, that she realized she smelled smoke. And burning.

Eggs! Eggs were burn-

An explosion from the front of the apartment immediately dropped her to the floor, more out of reflex than necessity. The gentle chime of metal on metal, in the uneven rhythm of wind chimes, filled the aftermath of the blast, when a secondary explosion went off. The flash-grenade lit up the entire apartment and rang in her ears, almost blocking out the suppressing fire that followed.

"This is why we can't have nice things," Shepard joked to calm her nerves. Inwardly, her mind was in a panic. How had the Reds found them again? Had security released them from custody already? Why would they want them dead so badly?

"Group of four, alternating fire," Supernova's voice flanging voice interrupted her, though he seemed to be talking to himself. He ripped open a cabinet door as he spoke, and recovered a stashed pistol.

Shepard didn't recognize the make, and that spoke volumes. It looked to be prototype technology based roughly off Armax Arsenal's Brawler. And it was only a back-up. "Low-grade explosion to bypass the lock," He must have had the omnigel security upgrade. Now is not the time to be jealous Shepard…

"No tech expert, local mercenaries, poorly outfitted." He rolled out to the side, and took a few quick shots before darting back into cover behind the counter with her. A heavy risk considering he was devoid of kinetic barriers. "Four." He muttered in confirmation, as shots peppered the space he'd occupied moments before.

"Flash-and-clear procedure. Ex-military." Shepard added. His tactical analysis of the situation helped her get her bearings. They clearly had nothing to do with the Reds. Not wanting to be useless, Shepard fumbled blindly under the cabinet to no avail. The pistol was his one and only. His other weapons were in the locker in the front hallway, now crowded with mercs, not an option.

Her pistol and omnitool were still in her jacket, which she could only guess was lost behind the couch. Several meters away with no clear cover between there and the kitchen.

The turian didn't seem to need her help. He darted over the counter, around the side of the wall, took shots amidst the spray of assault rifles, never from the same cover twice. She heard a scream from the entryway for his efforts.

This wasn't going to last. Sheer luck and ballsy determination had kept him from getting shot, but with no kinetic barriers a single bullet would be the end of him. If she could reach her jacket, she could add tech mines and cover fire to the fray, try to even the odds, but reaching it was suicide. If she could manage a barrier, she could probably make it to cover behind the couch.

Her biotics made a mockery of the skill. She hadn't been to BaAT, hadn't been a navy brat able to hire a formal tutor, or a colonial rube with the fortune to find an informal one. Dusters had more biotic potential than she did, she remembered DI Ellison once bellowing at her. Her L3 implants had been required once she was identified in basic, and not even an afterthought afterwards.

All basic and N7 training couldn't help her achieve more than comical flails and fails when she tried to use her abilities, and they'd quickly given up. The Normandy even had an alternate, formal biotic assigned to her, Shepard remembered bitterly.

There were some things she could do, of course. More violent things… things formal training was meant to cull and avoid until a biotic was more skilled to handle their talent. Red things. On a molecular level, Shepard could rend flesh, barriers, and armor with her biotics almost as fast as she could with a gun. When it worked.

Her turian fired from cover again, and several rounds barely missed his pretty painted face. Shepard made a decision. Trying to think of a barrier on a molecular level, something she would defend against her own warping and rending attacks, she pumped her arm across her chest in the barrier mnemonic all human biotics were taught. Nothing happened. She tried again, and continued to try. Thankfully, Supernova was too absolved in the fight to notice her awkward air pumping that made her look more like a bad mime than an Alliance biotic.

Finally, after switching arms multiple times, it worked, barely. A mass effect field wavered unsteadily about her, looking like a dying light bulb as opposed to a capable shield. Giving it its first field test, she threw herself without warning across the apartment. Rounds fell on her like rain, the barrier fell half-way across the room, and without waiting to see if she could make it, Shepard dove and rolled straight into the far wall.

Pain blasted through her shoulder as it took the full force of her crash, graceful as it may have been from military training. Her arms had been glanced, more from shrapnel than bullets. Her leg was bleeding, another glance, but there were no serious injuries. Digging her jacket out from behind the couch, she slipped her omnitool onto her hand and gripped her pistol firmly in the other.

She didn't bother to try a barrier again, and doubted she ever would. Instead, she quickly rigged her omnitool for a tech mine to overload kinetic barriers and fry any standard weapon's VI, forcing a brief lockdown while the temporary virus insisted the weapon had overheated. Her enemy was trained, ex-military. This was a clean, professional sweep. They knew to expect resistance. They expected their enemies to be smart. So instead, she decided to be stupid.

Rather than fire from the cover of the far wall and couch, she emerged from the side she'd entered and launched her tech mine at her nearest enemy. His kinetic barriers fizzled and died, which left nothing to protect him from the three shots she put past his armor and into his head.

"Multiple hostiles!" Screamed one of the two remaining mercs. And then he just screamed. Supernova darted up from his newest cover and loosed what must have been almost his entire thermal clip into the merc's torso, before switching to fire on the sole survivor.

He cried out a "Retreat!" to no one in particular before stumbling out of the apartment and vanishing into the halls of the station.

The turian wasted no time in emerging from the kitchen and heading straight to his locker. He quickly threw on his armor, a lustrous, well-kept mix of red and black, as his civvies had been. It, coupled with the assault and sniper rifles strapped to the back, made him look much more imposing and professional than the flirty turian she'd met in OmniTonic. "Stay here; explain what happened to security when they arrive, you can leave or stay afterwards."

"What, exactly, just happened? Do you know who they were? Why they tried to kill-…" Shepard paused briefly. She wasn't sure who they'd tried to kill. "-us?" She settled on. First the Reds, and now a mercenary group. She didn't see how the two were related. Reds didn't hire mercenaries; they liked to do their own dirty work. But Shepard also didn't believe in coincidences.

"No. I'm going to find out," Kneeling beside one of the mercenaries, he rolled the dead man over and quickly hacked into his omnitool. The second omnitool flared to life beside the first, and he flipped through screens and files on both faster than Shepard could keep up. She assumed he was trying to find the mercenary group's local haunt. Better to be sure than potential get lost chasing the survivor. "Stay here." He said again without looking up.

"Like hell, I'm coming with you." Shepard grabbed her jacket and shrugged it on, ignoring the dull ache in her leg and shoulder.

He muttered, "I work faster on my own." Shepard ignored him and pulled down the emergency medkit above his locker, sealing her leg injury with a slab of medigel.

"And die faster," She frowned, throwing a belt of grenades from his locker over her shoulder. He stood up, transferring a file from one omnitool to the other, obviously having found what he was looking for. "Let me help, I owe you."

"You can help me by reporting what happened." He hadn't made from the door yet, but Shepard knew it wasn't out of hesitation; it was simply because he knew she'd follow him. His green eyes narrowed in barely suppressed irritation, and then, to her surprise, in concern. "You're bleeding."

Shepard followed his gaze to her hands, where the blood from where she'd been grazed was dripping down her fingers. She wiped them off on her pants. "It's nothing."

"It's something," The anger was gone from his voice, and he steered her towards the restroom. The abrupt switch made her wonder if he wanted her to stay behind out of fear for her safety. It was sweet, and annoying. She was about to tell him as much when without warning he shoved her into the restroom, the door slid closed behind her, and the lock turned red.

"Consider us even." He called through the door and left.


	6. Opacity

Opacity

Ignoring the furious shouts of his human from the restroom, Nihlus left his apartment and quickly followed the map he'd brought up on his omnitool to lead him to the mercenary base. It wasn't a formal hold out, no club or fortified apartment complex he'd had to force his way through. Rather, the group, Terra Libera, worked out of a small section of the station permanently being renovated.

Which likely meant all or most points of entrance would be in renovation, while the main complex would be complete and relatively fortified. The mercenary's omnitool hadn't given him much. A recording of their commander ordering a clean sweep and promising high payment, which was easily traced back to their hideout.

Unfortunately, it gave him no hint of who might have hired the group. He had a few guesses, some more troublesome than the others. What seemed most likely was that a group in the Terminus had caught wind of the Prothean beacon, and wanted to eliminate the Spectre sent to recover it.

It was more than a little unnerving the Terminus could respond so quickly, finding out he was on the case, but any information could be bought for the right price. That they wanted him dead didn't tell him much either. Either they knew the location, and didn't want him to get in the way, or they didn't know, and hoped to glean the information from his corpse.

What was clear enough was that it was a sloppy, rushed job. His 'confrontation' yesterday had doubtless alerted them to where he was staying. A confrontation that had unnerved Tequila enough that she'd actually thought the mercenaries might be there for the both of them. Then again, the message had said to take out any resistance, but he couldn't fathom a reason why one meager Alliance solider would draw their attention. Likely they'd simply intended to kill anyone with him to keep it clean and simple.

Their gear had told him a little more about the group. Tequila had claimed they were ex-military, and he had no reason not to believe her, save that he still referred to her as Tequila. Military groups tended to use weapons and armor all from the same manufacturer, but the three dead had had a ragtag ensemble of weapons and armor. More likely, they were primarily military, and their weapons and armor was local, stolen from confiscated contraband tourists couldn't take to Earth or the local colonies. Or they had a supplier in customs. Either way, it meant he could expect anything from cheap volus knock offs of his own weapons' designs, to the most lethal examples of the real thing.

All of which meant he knew very little, and therefore needed to case the establishment before infiltrating it. The lone survivor of the encounter in his apartment would either make it back and alert the group, or decide to lay low out of fear of angering a Spectre. Either way, with a survivor returning or the team not reporting back, the base would be ready for him.

It was a simple and easy mission. Infiltrate the base, find out who wanted them dead, take out the base for good measure, then report the attempt to the Council while he continued on to Eden Prime. At least, on his own, he knew it would be a simple and easy mission. He just had to hope security made it to his apartment in time to detain and question his human, before she could get in his way.

_"Humans are meddlesome," Saren growled as their waitress departed. He'd invited Nihlus out for a drink between friends, an invitation Nihlus had been grateful for. Lately, Saren had grown more and distant. He was devoted to his work, as was Nihlus, but the friends had always managed to make time for each other until recently. _

_ Nihlus had assumed he was involved in something, or with someone. When Nihlus had taken his place as the more infamous Spectre in the Skyllian Verge, he'd assumed the Council would give his old mentor more important missions. Saren had always been pragmatic, but Nihlus never found him particularly cold until then. He'd begun to wonder if he was wrong, and he'd inadvertently retired his best friend._

_ Thankfully, this meeting proved he was wrong. Saren did have a mission, and he wanted Nihlus to be a part of it. He hadn't been able to tell him more on an insecure channel, and even now he'd wanted to meet in a public place first before going back to his apartment. It was almost as if he didn't want to be alone with his own thoughts… _

_ Nihlus shook the feeling away. He was the one who was being paranoid, not Saren. "They have their uses," Nihlus shrugged disinterestedly and took another sip of his drink._

_ "Shock troops?" Saren snorted, dragging a talon along the rim of his glass. Turians found the high-pitched screech soothing, while it grated on other races. Nihlus knew Saren did it on purpose. _

_ "Among other things." Nihlus shrugged again. The waitress Saren had growled at had done little more than ask after their day. Such pleasantries were a primarily human custom, but nothing worse than salarian mannerisms. _

_ "Enlighten me, brother." Saren drawled. Nihlus blinked, looking up from his drink. He hadn't expected Saren to push the issue. Perhaps he already knew about Nihlus' recommendation for Commander Shepard to join the Spectres, and wanted to hear the truth with his own ears. _

_ "Intel, naval fleets," Nihlus mumbled, purposefully vague. He didn't want to have this conversation, here, now, when they were supposed to be catching up. _

_ "All things the Council already has." Nihlus nodded in agreement, begging the spirits to send the waitress back with their order. "So what use are they?" Saren continued, and Nihlus held back a groan as he realized he'd trapped himself._

_ "They have their uses," He repeated helplessly when their food thankfully arrived, and the conversation steered down safer tracks._

Nihlus reached what he took for a side entrance to the base just as he broke from his reflections. An underpowered section of the station, the ceiling lights flickered precariously, and every other floor light was out. The shutters to view the great expanse of space or the rolling clouds of earth were closed, making the hall even more dim. A pale orange holo lit up the door; the words "Maintenance only" flashed across in most Council languages.

A security camera was making lazy rotations back and forth across the hall. Rather than reporting to security, Nihlus guessed the feed was sent back into the Terra Libera base. Opening his omnitool, he worked on an override that would put the past five seconds of the feed on a loop, allowing him all the time he'd need to bypass the lock on the door.

Once again, Nihlus went over what he'd learned and what to expect. Then his mind drifted back to his original mission, insight into Commander Shepard. So far, all he'd done upon visiting the L5 station was fight humans part of extremist groups, and been glared at by those who weren't. Being a Spectre hardly helped, most humans tended to resent the Spectres, not for the power they were given, but because humanity didn't have any of that power… yet.

_"You recommended a human to the Spectres?" Saren growled through his teeth. His mandibles flared and clasped tightly to his face, repeating the gesture several times. He was furious. _

_ "I recommended a soldier," Nihlus stood still, letting Saren rage. He'd seen his friend angry before, and he knew this was the best way to handle it._

_ "Captain Anderson's pet soldier," He snarled, spinning in place. When he saw Nihlus hadn't moved to confront him or back down, he calmed some. "The irony of you mentoring her almost completes itself." _

_ "Every race deserves the chance to prove itself," Nihlus pressed, not backing down, though part of him wished he would. "Even humans." _

_ "They murdered our brothers!" Saren fumed, gripping the chair nearest him hard enough for his talons to leave mark. For a moment, Nihlus thought he might throw it._

_This entire fight was stupid and irrelevant. Saren was being irrational, and in a moment of his own irrationality, Nihlus said something stupid and irrelevant, too. "No, Saren, they murdered your brother." _

_Everything stopped. Saren's face was unreadable. Or rather, it was an open book, in a language Nihlus couldn't read, no matter how hard he tried. Whatever fleeting feeling lay there quickly passed, but before he could speak, Nihlus interrupted him. "I'm sorry, Saren. I didn't mean to make light-"_

"_It's fine Nihlus." It wasn't fine; they both knew that. He'd dishonored his brother's memory and Saren's grief, but Nihlus couldn't think of a way to say as much. "There's no guarantee this human is even worthy of the Spectres. If you want to waste your time on them, that's your prerogative." _

"_There's never a guarantee." Nihlus agreed quickly. He didn't plan to take his evaluations lightly. "Let's speak of something else, the mission you originally called to talk about-"_

"_I'm tired, Nihlus. I'll see you tomorrow, we'll speak of it then." But he hadn't, and they didn't. _

Nihlus shook himself out of his memories, hacked the video feed to the camera, then turned his attention to the door. There was no reason to assume Commander Shepard would be anything like the majority of humans he'd encountered. Even if she was as patriotic as Saren, it wouldn't necessarily make her a poor Spectre. If anything, patriotism made a good Spectre, if not always a good person.

He thought back to his human glaring up at him with fierce determination. Armed with nothing more than laughable biotics, a jacket, grenades, and a cheap Hahne-Kedar pistol. As annoying as it was, it was admirable nonetheless. After all, he reasoned as the door to the mercenary base slid open, she might be like her.


	7. Relativity

Relativity

"Don't you dare leave me here!" Shepard screamed, battering futilely against the locked bathroom door. "Supernova! Turian! Whatever the hell your name is, let me out! That's an order!" There was no handle to jimmy, only a holographic interface that normally would have slid the door open at the slightest provocation. If it had been back on Earth, she simply would have kicked through the drywall, but the walls on stations were made from solid steel. "I am Commander fucking Shepard and I demand you open this door!"

Silence. He was long gone. Shepard banged her head against the door. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. Growling, Shepard shoved herself back from the door and glared at the lock. She did have a belt of grenades…

_Easy girl, calm down_. Shepard took a deep breath, trying to reason with her fury. _This isn't the first time you've been locked in a bathroom_. Shepard paced a few short steps, which, given the limited space, was more like turning in a circle. She needed to be focused, able to concentrate enough to bypass the lock. Shepard inhaled through her nose, held the breath for five seconds, then exhaled lengthily through her mouth. An anger-management technique, taught in one of her regular psych evaluations.

"Which I passed," Shepard muttered, though there was no possible way Admiral Hackett could hear her. Knowing Steven, he'd probably sense her back sass. She sent him a quick mental apology then knelt to deal with the door's emergency override.

Security was likely having an aneurism. First the silent alarm from the explosion, unless the mercenaries had paid off the hotel, and now her hasty bypass. She didn't bother trying not to tip off the alarms, she just bludgeoned her way through the system until the door stuttered and hacked its way open.

The bodies were still congealing in the hall, deep red blood oozing across the floor in every direction, with a noticeable slant towards the entrance. Stepping over the bodies to the one her turian had been inspecting, her boots left thick prints in the crimson that slowly refilled. _Boots to a nightclub? Really Shepard?_ At least she'd give security a blood trail to follow.

Shepard knelt beside the dead man, her pants greedily drinking up his now superficial blood. The material was black, and the effect did little more than make her knees uncomfortable. Drawing up his omnitool, she noted Supernova had thankfully left it on the file he'd copied. It was the last call he'd gotten, and would ever get. Shepard copied it over and played it back to her earpiece.

"What the fuck, man? You know not to call on the job, that's a damn rookie move and you could have gotten us killed." The speaker, now dead, snarled to whoever had been on the other line.

"Shut up and listen," The caller interrupted. Shepard started up a trace on the old signal while listening to the rest of the conversation play out a third time, first for the mercenary, then for Supernova, now for her. "There's been a change of plans-"

"-what the fuck?-"

"The client wants them both out of the way. The money we're getting for this is surreal, so don't fuck it up."

"-yeah, yeah-"

"Get out of there fast when you're done, we're not sending in the cleaning crew. This is gonna be public, and it's gonna be big."

"-that all?"

"You taking this shit seriously?"

"Oh, no, I just thought I'd take Terra Libera's best out for a look at the local real-estate, of course I'm taking it seriously."

Shepard's omnitool blipped a completed trace, locking the signal. A quick local search got her the public blueprints for the station, and she overlapped the trace with the layout. It led to what should have been another business emporium, but the station had it flagged as in the midst of renovation.

The rest of the mercenary's conversation got her no more useful intel, though it did give her a few creative insults she planned on putting to use later. Shepard pushed herself to her feet, and set her omnitool to guide her to the merc base. She'd have to hurry if she hoped to get out of here before security arrived, and if she wanted to be of any help to her turian.

Not that he even wanted her help. Just the opposite, he went out of his way to avoid it. So why bother helping? So he wanted to get himself killed, why should she care? _Why do you care?_ Shepard chewed on her lower lip. The call confirmed the mercenary group had been hired to kill both of them, so she could argue it was self-preservation.

Or she could not argue at all. She didn't care why she cared. She was going to help him whether he wanted her to or not and that was that.

Shepard flicked the safety on her pistol and shoved it into the back of her pants. She couldn't exactly hide the belt of grenades, or the fact that she had no shirt on and was dripping blood, but who cared about semantics? Focusing on the map on her omnitool, she bolted from the apartment and started jogging towards the base.

When the frantic shouts of "Go, go, go!" echoed from behind her.

Shit.

Shepard chanced a glance over her shoulder, and was greeted with the site of a squad of security officers charging after her and her bloody footprints. Red-footed. At least she hadn't been caught red-handed. Wait… Then she remembered the blood that had dripped down her arms. Shepard shrugged it off and kept running.

"Stop!" She had no intention of doing so. Several similar demands to halt grew dimmer and dimmer, and she smugly realized she was gaining a great deal of ground, when a wall of black chain fell from the ceiling and blocked her path. Ah, right, anti-riot gates. She turned and another one fell to block her only exit. Completely trapped. Well… fuck.

"I said stop," The first man to reach her make-shift cage pointed out.

"And yet," Shepard shrugged, contemplating warping the opposite wall and continuing on her way. She didn't have time for this.

"Funny," His expression said he found her anything but. "The rest of you," He gestured to the rest of his squad, "Check out the apartment. I'll interrogate our 'friend'." Strange, that he would trust himself to be alone with her. She could have a concealed weapon, or biotics for all he knew. Then Shepard noted an almost imperceptible shimmer around the gates. Kinetic barriers. Impressive.

"I'll save you the time. I'm Commander Shepard with the Alliance Navy, and I'm in the middle of an investigation," She drew up her ID to add weight to her words, "A… friend and I were recently attacked by a mercenary group called 'Terra Libera' based on this station, and I need your cooperation if I'm going to take them down."

The security guard's glared wavered as he looked over her credentials, clearly hoping for a fake he didn't find. The entire situation was obviously above his pay-grade, but from the uneasy way in which he eyed her, he still needed convincing. "And you didn't report all this when you were attacked for security to handle because…?"

"This is a covert military operation." Starting now. "They've made themselves enemies of the Alliance by targeting one of their most decorated Commanders, and as you are well aware military authority supersedes local jurisdiction." Shepard stood up straighter, as though she were giving a lecture to her squad. "The Alliance of course thanks you for your cooperation." She added, though she was still literally behind bars.

The officer frowned at her for a great deal longer than necessary before tapping a command into his omnitool. The gates lifted slowly with an ear-piercing screech, as if they begrudged her as well. "… I've heard of Terra Libera. A bunch of ex-military guys who branched off from Terra Firma. What do you need us to do?"

Shepard held in a sigh of relief. She hadn't actually expected he'd help her. She held all her doubts back, however, and made it seem as if she'd planned every instance of this encounter. "Exactly what you've been doing. Continue your investigation and stay out of mine."

"I can't just ignore-!" He gaped at the thought of standing on the sidelines. A man after her own heart.

"You won't be. But we both know proper channels for a raid of this size won't get you approval in time to help." He nodded, a bit sullenly, and seemed lost in thought for a moment. When he looked back at her, his gaze was much more intense.

"I believe you, I'm not going to get in the Alliance's way on this, but keep us informed, and while you're-… investigating, we think Terra Libera might have a supplier in customs. If you can find any information-"

"You'll be the first to know." She promised.

"One other thing." He added as she turned to go, "I'm still waiting on that statement from you and your 'friend.'" Shepard flushed. He'd been the same security guard from last night. And he remembered her.

"Ah-…" She cringed, rubbing the back of her neck in her typical gesture of unease.

"I know the Alliance is out there protecting the galaxy, and I take that seriously. But I'm here protecting this station. It'd be nice if you returned the favor." The guy had balls to call her out. She couldn't help but respect that, even if she didn't particularly like it.

"You'll get your statement." Shepard gave an abrupt nod, and kept eye-contact.

"I better. I know where you live," He joked light-heartedly, and she forced a chuckle before she turned and rushed towards the base.

An ex-military group, Shepard thought with disbelief as she ran. For some reason it just didn't compute. How could anyone turn their back on the Alliance? To become extremist terrorists no less? The Systems Alliance had united Earth, protected her and all her colonies against internal and external threats. It was the single most important human operation in existence. It was the single most important thing to her.

_ "Hey, look at that, Shepard," Finch snorted over his drink, waving it at the bar's television. "You're a big fucking hero."_

_ Shepard had been looking. The holos spoke of an attack on the colony of Mindoir, and the reporter was currently getting a statement from the captain of the SSV Einstein, Hannah Shepard, who'd been part of the planet's relief force. _

_ "Dumb colonists, what'd they think was gonna happen?" Jimmy laughed, throwing his bottle cap at the screen._

_ "Prolly thought the Alliance would protect them." Finch hooted. _

_ "Dumb jarheads always get there late." Jason chimed in, "Think they're so important, but they never do shit."_

_ Shepard glanced at the Reds laughing around her, and focused back on the scrolling report of the news channel. The captain who happened to share her name was giving a sad, soulful speech about how she wished they'd arrived sooner, petitioning for a larger garrison for the colonies, while giving thanks for the ones they'd managed to save. _

_She didn't seem self-important. If anything, she looked ashamed. The camera flipped to a Lieutenant Zabaleta, who was helping a teen who looked to be about her age. He waved the reporter away with a growl, and the holo flashed to show other survivors the rescue team had managed to save._

_The Reds lost interest in the report. They kept laughing, joking, some of them branched off to dust up. Jason waved at her, calling for her to join._

"_We think we're so important, but we never do shit…" Shepard mumbled._

"_Wassat, Shep? Finch slurred. He wasn't nearly as drunk as he acted._

"_Nothing." We're nothing. Shepard shook her head and left to join Jason. _

She reflected briefly on what the security guard had said. How she and her turian had avoided being questioned simply because it was inconvenient. His job hadn't meant anything to her. Maybe the mercenaries were the same, and the Alliance didn't mean anything to them.


	8. Fusion

Fusion

There were five reliable exits to the mercenary base, not counting the one Nihlus had entered from. Rather than override all the locks, he overloaded them. Their circuits fried, not even a canister of omnigel would open them without serious repairs beforehand. On the eastern side of the base, (bless humans and their simplistic square designs) an "Out of Order" sign sparked and sputtered in front of an elevator, which, a quick check assured him, was actually out of order.

There were a few maintenance shafts the mercenaries could still escape from if they were desperate, but Nihlus doubted they'd realize that option until it was too late.

The perimeter was, as the plans for the station promised, actually in permanent renovation. The area was gutted, a macabre skeleton of what it should have been. The floors were missing panels, crates were scattered about, and where bright signs might have lined the walls, gaping holes did instead.

The center held a two-story complex, a shopping mall that may-have-been. Winding escalators led to the second floor, or would have, if there stairs were still intact. Windows were covered with tarp or boarded up. The main entry way, instead of glistening sliding doors, was a dark, gaping maw leading into the bowels of Terra Libera's hideout.

Main exits blocked, Nihlus drew his sniper rifle and looked over the base. Unsurprisingly, there were signs of movements inside what few windows he could see through. Lighting struggled to escape through cracks and holes, belying the unoccupied look the base should have had. He found two look-outs on his side, which he guessed meant eight in total, two for each side.

He took his time lining up his headshots, watching the patrols pace back and forth along the second story balcony. He waited until they were about to pass each other, then fired. The first shot sent one of them crashing into the wall behind him. He slid to the floor, leaving a trail of red blood, and didn't get up again. The second took out his partner before he had time to panic.

Moving from cover, Nihlus circled around to the south side of the base, intending to take out each group of look outs and leave the mercenaries blind, when the loud, blaring cry of "Perimeter breach!" echoed from the north.

North. Not east, where he'd so recently been. Which meant the mercenaries were responding to a different threat. Tequila. He should have been more surprised.

It was just what he needed. A distraction, and nothing more. It would let him enter through the south, access their base's mainframe and find out who had hired Terra Libera to take him out. He could be in and out before the mercenaries had even noticed, wire the information to the Council, and spend the rest of his leave waiting for the Normandy. He could even send any non-classified intel to the Alliance as a show of good faith. It was a diversion, a tactical advantage…

It was his human. Growling, furious at her and himself, he slammed his sniper rifle into its lock on his hardsuit with much more force than necessary. Yanking his assault rifle free, he sprinted around the west side of the complex, keeping an eye on the base where the mercenaries were panicking, fleeing from their holes like flooded-out pyjacks.

The mercenaries were running away from him, which gave him clear and easy targets as he darted from cover to cover. Kneeling behind one of the many crates in the area, he levered his assault rifle and opened fire. One man fell almost immediately, crashing head over heels to the floor. His partner spun, rifle drawn, but devoid of cover. The rounds took him straight in the chest, the first of the shots eating up the power from his kinetic barriers, the second tearing through his armor. The man returned fire wildly, before the spray from his assault rifle lost focus and went towards the ceiling. His corpse toppled, disbelieving, as the modified rounds quickly made short work of his ablative plating.

The rest of the charging squad was, unfortunately, not as headstrong. They dove for cover as soon as the shooting started, screaming "Enemies everywhere!" and returning fire in Nihlus general direction. Fortunately, one of the benefits of fighting in the renovated sector was the lighting was either dim or nonexistent. Nihlus retreated back into the darker corners of the perimeter. None of the squad's fire managed to hit, which was a merciful blessing, considering they had tracer shots modded to their assault rifles. His old cover lit up with all the colors of the Serpent Nebula, and stood out like a rainbow beacon until the tracers faded.

Now that he'd drawn their attention, Nihlus switched back to his sniper rifle. His enemy was ex-military, and they'd likely begin fanning out and closing in on his general location. In the mean-time, he lined up his shots on the remaining look outs. Two fell to his fire, one over the railing with a wild cry. He'd take a shot in the shoulder, and his screams altered the remaining four. "Sniper in play!" One of them screamed.

"I don't have a visual!" Returned another.

Nihlus didn't dare try for another. He slipped out from his cover and sprinted to what looked to be a toppled table from an abandoned work-station. He chanced a glance over the top to see if he'd been spotted. Neither the squad he'd encountered nor the snipers had spotted him yet. Their leader screamed for a switch to infrared, and he resigned himself to the end of his stealth tactics.

A group poured out from the eastern side of base, reinforcements the squad had doubtless called for. They advanced with a great deal more caution than their western counterpart, but he still managed to snipe one as the mercs advanced from cover to cover.

A burst of blue as a kinetic barrier overloaded, followed by three rapid shots from a pistol, drew his attention back to the western squad. One of the mercs collapsed, his helmet pooling with blood from a single point of entry through his visor. No sooner did he fall, than the loud clunking of boots on metal sounded from Nihlus left.

Tequila smashed more than slid into cover beside him, omnitool glowing a vibrant orange and pistol at the ready. "Come here often?" She panted around a clumsy smile, flipping her hair out of her eyes.

Relieved, impressed, and angry all at once, Nihlus fixed her with a glare. "Why are you here?"

"Because I am?" She shrugged, rolling to plant her elbows on top of their cover, and fire several shots towards a mercenary trying to get a lock on their position. He darted out of sight screaming for a medic moments later.

Nihlus took the time to line up a shot on one of the sniper, and took several hits to his kinetic barriers for it. He ignored the barrage, aimed for the mercenary's head, and fired. The man fell for his efforts, and Nihlus glanced at his omnitool as he fell back into cover. Shields at forty percent. "Give me a reason."

She clearly didn't want to. Instead, she slid out from cover, launched a tech mine and forced the rest of the western's squad's weapons to register having overheated. "… the Reds," She muttered in the brief ceasefire. "That gang that attacked us. I use to be one of them. This is my fault. The two are related somehow, I know it." The gunfire started back up. She glanced out at the field then leaned back against the table. "Your turn."

"What?" The west group was holding position, concentrating fire on their cover, doubtless so the eastern group could reach and outflank them. Nihlus was focused on the combat and only half listening.

"I share something, you share something," She explained, returning fire briefly. One of the sniper's fell, from a pistol no less. A Hahne-Kedar pistol. _Down, Nihlus. Your angry, remember? _"That's how this works. Haven't you ever been on a date before?"

"If this is your idea of a date, I have to wonder-"

"-if I'm crazy?-"

"-where you've been all my life," He joked, wondering if he was joking. His shields back at full, he lined up another shot with his sniper. "What am I sharing?" It occurred to him having to ask defeated the purpose of this exercise, but Tequila didn't seem to mind. She tapped a finger to her face. His clan markings.

He shot down another of the approaching eastern squad. They were the true threat, as far as he was concerned. "They didn't get me anything," He explained, keeping his eyes on the field and off her, "Colony worlds aren't respected," Another shot, "I'm not respected. My job is," He fell back into cover when his shields began to scream at him, "It's why I need you to leave."

"I respect you," Tequila affirmed, so offhandedly she clearly didn't give the matter a second thought. "But I'm still not leaving." Nihlus growled, Tequila ignored him. "So we might as well enjoy a romantic evening by a warm fire." She pulled a grenade off her belt and held it out to him as a peace offering, the irony of which didn't escape him. She tore her eyes away from the battlefield to stare questioningly at him, waiting for him to accept. _Knowing you will._

Nihlus's mandibles flickered. Annoyance and bemusement went hand-in-hand with her. "I never frag on a first date." He tore his eyes off her face and let them sweep over the battlefield. The renovation wasn't just for show. An off-handed explosive could cause the structures to-

Tequila, taking his casual refusal to be little more than a joke, flung the grenade straight down the center field of battle.

-collapse.

The construction overhanging acting as a loft for the last four snipers toppled in on itself at the blast. The renovated floor caved, and the mercenaries fell through to be wedged in the maintenance shafts below.

"Cleared a path," Tequila announced. "Come on!" she cried, vaulting over their cover and making for a new vantage point. Nihlus switched to his assault rifle, and let out a stream of cover fire.

"Heavy in play!" Screamed the western leader, right before Nihlus gunned him down.

Tequila rolled and took cover against a decommissioned construction vehicle. She threw another grenade towards the western group, and waved for him to join her. Nihlus, reluctantly, did.

The grenade went off amidst screams of "fire in the hole!" The resulting flames quickly and greedily clung to any flammable material in the area, combusting old piping, left over construction ordinance, and anything not made of metal. Nihlus felt a headache coming on.

_This is why you work alone_, he berated himself. _This is why Saren worked alone. Because anything more complicates things._ _Because anything more is_-

"Fun." Tequila grinned at him, though at least had the decency to look a little guilty. "I frag on a first date," She added, belatedly.

A barrage of fire clattered and banged against the wall of metal covering them. Even a blind and deaf mercenary would be aware of their presence by now. A chunk from the second story balcony teetered precariously, then collapsed to their right, showering them with dust and debris from the first grenade. This entire mission was FUBARed. They were surrounded, the base was alerted, and the foundation was crumbling around them. All because one human, his human, didn't understand the meaning of the word 'subtle.'

"Is there anything you don't do on a first date?" His eye-ridges twitched and his mandibles flickered.

"Introductions." She smiled at him without missing a beat. He tried to be angry, he wanted to be angry, but all he could do was laugh.


	9. Explosion

Explosion

There were an alarming number of things the Reds and the Alliance had in common. Of those things, the most important was that they both knew how to make Shepard feel at home. Not so much through their cultists agendas, though she had adamantly believed in both while a part of them, but through combat.

With a gun in her hand and an omnitool on her wrist, Shepard never felt more comfortable, more at ease. Add a round of grenades to the mix, and she was a force to be reckoned with. As a small and heavy arms specialist, keeping up a constant stream of fire was her specialty, and the explosions came as a bonus. So it was more than a little disappointing when she reached for her third grenade, and Supernova's taloned hand clamped down on her wrist.

"No," was all he said with an adamant shake of his head.

"You're no fun." She pouted, but lowered her hand.

"We're in a construction zone," he explained, "We can't blast our way through without risking seriously destabilizing the base."

"So?" Personally, blasting rubble only made more rubble, so Shepard didn't see an issue.

"So," He growled, lining up a precise, _slow_, headshot on one of the mercs. The man in question ducked back into cover in time to save his neck, and Supernova switched targets. "If the base relies on the station for power, we could accidently fry their landlines and cut power to their mainframe. Or send the roof down on top of it. I doubt they have the data backed up elsewhere."

"Alright, I get it," Shepard flapped a hand in his face to silence him. She looked over the base again, no paint adorned the entrance to mark it as Red territory. On the contrary, nothing marked the entrance but a large, black hole… "They're not using the front entrance. Trap?"

"Likely." He agreed, taking a moment to follow her gaze. "We could make a run for the side entrance on the west,"

"Or we could use the front entrance." Finch had always said 'balls first' was her style, and her mission reports tended to agree. For once, Supernova did too.

"Alright, let's-" A sound still his words, a sound every soldier was trained to recognize and be on alert for. A easy tap of metal on metal, not set to any particular rhythm, growing closer before it lulled to a silent, fatal stop. He didn't yell a warning or curse, he just grabbed her and spun around their cover, likely hoping the vehicle and his kinetic barriers would spare them from the worst of the blast. A blast that never came. "Dud," He muttered, releasing her.

"They get grenades, why the hell don't I get-" A hail of fire from the mercenaries assault rifles reminded them they'd moved from optimal cover. The two of them rolled back around what Shepard assumed had once been a lift, but not quite fast enough. A blast of shrapnel grazed her face, slicing down her eye, another piece diagonally across her face.

"Keep your barrier up," Her turian reprimanded her, tossing her a pack of medigel, and there his concern ended.

Shepard caught it, ripped it open with her teeth, and smeared the gel across her face. Head injuries always looked worse than they really were. Blood ran into her eye, turned her vision red, and the diagonal wound had blood pooling over her nose and into her mouth. The gel should have sealed the wounds and had them mended within a day, being little more deep cuts. Instead, it didn't affix to her injuries at all.

"What the hell!" Shepard cursed, more than a little alarmed as the gel oozed uselessly down her face. Not so much out of concern for her superficial head wound, but the realization that medigel had suddenly stopped working for seemingly no reason. Her leg went cold, and she realized the gel on her thigh had fallen off as well.

Supernova took the situation in with a glance and snarled a word that made her translator glitch. Dropping to one knee beside her he ripped a sleeve off her jacket, and then took his talons to it, tearing it into makeshift bandages. "Why isn't it sealing?" He demanded, bringing her back to herself. Medi-gel was human-designed. She was a certified field medic. _Calm down Shepard. It doesn't work on Threshermaw acid either_.

Only shrapnel had no properties that would have interfered with the sealing agent, which only released when subjected to the proper ultrasound frequency… "It's not a grenade, ultrasound emitter." She muttered as Supernova tied the bandages around her head. "Interferes with medigel sealing, would have been confiscated at customs." She took one of the bandages and tied it around her leg. The make-shift tourniquet would have to do for now. "They do have a supplier in customs,"

"Later. Can you cover me to the front entrance?" Supernova squeezed her shoulder, more to get her attention than out of sympathy, she imagined.

"It's going to scar…" Shepard mumbled dejectedly, wiping the blood out of her eyes. Twisting, she looked over the oversized wheel she was using as cover. Half the eastern group were already on their way to outflanking them, though they'd heard nothing of the western group or snipers after she'd used her grenades on them. _Which were damn useful_.

The mercenaries were far too spread out for any suppressing fire to be helpful by now. The only thing they had on their side was the sheer size of their cover… and grenades. "Yeah," She allotted finally, rigging an overload on her omnitool. "I can cover you."

They traded nods, and she opened fire towards the half of the group that would give him the most trouble reaching the door. He ducked his head, then sprinted towards his next point of cover, which was a piece of the floor paneling that had been dislodged and bent vertically. He had two more runs before he could reach the door, but she was already pressed up against the lift trying to avoid fire from the flanking group. He glanced back at her position, then ran for his next cover.

Shepard shrugged off her grenade belt and flung it as high and as far as she could between both groups, then launched her overload tech-mine. The resulting blast did more than provide cover, it made cover. Metal and shrapnel flew out in all directions, careening into the mercenaries, into the lift, and into the base. A blinding white light lit up the entire section, seeping through the cracks in the floor and the walls and burning Shepard's eyes.

The heat-wave that washed over her smelled of ash and burnt flesh, which she smugly noted she'd at least gotten one merc. Rolling out of cover, she ran for the closest cover to the main entrance. Said cover happened to be the sniper loft her older grenade had toppled. She staggered once or twice over the unsteady flooring and from the occasional tremor from a secondary explosion.

More importantly, she took no fire as she ran. The explosion had completely disorganized and destabilized the mercenaries. Perhaps she'd gotten their squad leader.

She was in the midst of giving herself a well-deserved pat on the back when sharp claws dug into her shoulders and spun her around, slamming her back into the cover behind her. "I said no explosives," A fanged mouth lined in flared mandibles snarled at her.

"Change of plans," Shepard glared at him. _Right knee to the waist to destabilize, block return blow on the left, uppercut and low spinning sweep to finish_…

There were mercenaries dying, explosions going off, perhaps the suppressing fire had resumed, but neither of them heard anything. They were glaring at each other, likely both thinking along the same track, when simultaneously they broke off.

"No means no," He forced a joke and Shepard forced a laugh. Humans. She was fighting the humans, not the turian. There was something she never thought would happen.

They took a step back from each other, and Shepard glanced out from cover. Small fires had lit throughout the base's garden of scrap metal, only to snuff out when they realized their tinder was limited. No one fired in their direction, and what screams there had been died out. "I think we got 'em all." or most of them.

"There'll be more in the base," He nodded his head towards the darkened entrance, then, after a pause, put an unnecessary guiding hand on the arm whose sleeve he'd ripped off. She covered it with her opposite hand and squeezed, which was likely as close to an apology as either of them could come.

The moment was ruined when, after a fatal delay for the mercenaries, the section's fire control system kicked in. Foam sprayed down across the entire sector, coating the roof of the base, the renovated perimeter, and both of them. No alarms blared furiously, so they must have cut their security feed from the rest of the station.

Supernova glared at the ceiling, then maturely resolved to ignore it, and moved to the entrance. He turned on his omnitool's flashlight and she followed suit, shining it into the abyss. The orange glow lit up sterile gray walls on either side of the hall, and revealed the entrance gave way to a large, open room that likely would have served as a food court, had the renovations ever been completed.

"Cuttlebone bastard!" A scream interrupted their inspection, and gunfire followed shortly after. A shotgun blast from a semi-automatic took her turian straight in the back, flaring his kinetic barriers but not piercing them. It was a completely ineffectual attack, save that it knocked her turian forward and revealed why the entrance had been a trap. It had no floor. He toppled head over heels into the black.

Shepard spun and opened fire, but her gun clicked uselessly at her, jammed by the foam pouring down on them. The mercenary laughed, a piercing, wild cry of a man with nothing left to lose. He tried to fire on her as well, but his gun gave the same protesting click, the last shot its magnum opus before it kicked the bucket.

Shepard rushed him, sprinting the distance between them, where he'd been hidden behind a toppled crate. He brought up his shotgun to strike her with and she caught it with both hands. They pushed and shoved against one another, caught up in an inglorious battle, when he used his size and desperation to his advantage to shove her to the floor. He raised the shotgun above his head, intent to beat her with it and foolishly leaving his midsection prone. Shepard dove, shoulder hitting him square in the chest and knocking him to the floor. It also knocked the wind out of his lung, and the gun from his hands.

Gripping her otherwise useless pistol, she smacked him across the temple from one side, and then the other. Her hand was a bloody mess and she was panting violently when she was sure he was dead. Shepard shoved herself off the corpse and glared down at the man's face. He'd died with a ghastly grin of white and red, "You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Shepard growled, then shook herself.

_Just a merc. Kills for creds. Don't think about his mother. Think about your turian. _Shepard turned and sprinted back to the entrance, empty, black, and silent. _Better yet, don't think about anything._


	10. Nebulous

Nebulous

Today, Nihlus thought as he went into free fall, was turning out to be a bad day.

He woke to the sound of someone screaming the name of his favorite drink. His first thought was that he'd take two, until he realized who it was. Tequila. Supernova was her name for him. He had next to no visibility, but Tequila's erratic flashlight winked in and out of focus above him.

He flexed his fingers and toes, then slowly worked his way up from the extremities. Nothing gave him trouble, everything seemed to work. He slowly eased himself to sitting and rolled his head in a circle, rubbing the back of his neck. His chest was where the majority of the pain came from, in addition to a headache he hoped wasn't a concussion.

"I'm fine!" He called loudly to calm her. Save for a possible bruised rib or five. His armor had taken the brunt of the fall, and he'd known better than to extend his arms and had avoided dislocating his shoulders. Flicking on his omnitool's flashlight, he used it to take stock of his surroundings.

It was a small, circular room. A few mangled skeletons shared the space with him, and the exit was a large steel door on the side opposite where he'd fallen in. The wall was lined in rectangular holes, large enough to lever guns on. An optimal shooting gallery for anyone who survived the fall. How morbid.

"I think I can get down!" Tequila informed him, and her omnitool's flashlight vanished.

"Did you find some rope?" He yelled back, pushing himself to standing. He rolled his shoulders back and took a deep breath, then immediately regretted it. She could have found rope long enough, he reasoned. It wasn't a long fall, which, by his and Saren's standards, meant it wasn't fatal.

An iridescent sapphire took the place of the wan orange, and he glanced up to see her managing a mass effect field that had her slowly floating down towards the floor. For a while. Nihlus barely had time to grimace when it faltered and failed, and she crashed into him at the full speed of gravity.

Yes. He definitively had at least three bruised ribs. Groaning, his vision spun before his human's face finally came into focus at an awkward angle. He was back on the floor again. Progress, Nihlus. It's what important.

"Are you okay?" It seemed ironic that she was the one to ask. She looked… awful, to put it lightly. Her face was covered in blood and soot, with one bandage tied around her head beneath her eyes, and another falling off her forehead. Her hair was dripping foam and more blood, her jacket was shredded, "I made it down," She added with a clumsy smile.

"I'm fine," He repeated, standing a second time. She offered a hand to help him up, and when he didn't take it, she hugged him instead. Nihlus hissed in pain and awkwardly rubbed her back, "… I'm fine."

"Yeah, okay," She mumbled, releasing him and spinning away to take in their surroundings. Her omnitool eventually focused on the door, at which she mumbled "I wish I had a grenade."

The door was old fashioned; there was no holographic lock for either of them to override, but that didn't particularly bother him. "We can melt the lock with an overheated thermal clip," He suggested.

She shook her head, "I think I can get it." Kneeling in front of the door, she pulled two pieces of metal from her pants pocket and started fiddling with the lock.

"What humans call 'secure' never ceases to depress me." Nihlus shook his head as the door swung effortlessly open.

"The more you know," Tequila shrugged with a smile, taking cover on the side of the door. She had no weapon…

"Where's your gun?" Nihlus demanded, scoping out the room the door opened into. Tables with restraints built in on one side, a stack of crates and a makeshift armory on the other. A torture chamber and storage room all in one. He took point and went for the only exit.

"Foam ruined it. I'll omnigel it later." She explained, glancing at the armory. He held out his sidearm to spare her the trouble. She raised both eyebrows, but took it without saying anything.

He kicked the next door in, assault rifle at ready, to reveal an empty hallway. He waved Tequila to take the left, and slowly advanced. Most of the doors along the hall were open, and most of their rooms were empty.

Mercenary quarters, cellblocks, rec rooms… The two last rooms looked as though they'd been hastily vacated, with knocked over chairs, cards, and red-sand lining the tables. That would explain why the western group had stood out in the open and let themselves be gunned down. Few people fought well sand-blasted.

"Think the upstairs is just for show?" Tequila whispered, voicing his thoughts. They seemed to have fallen right into their main base of operations. He nodded, when he picked up the muted sound of raised voices behind closed doors.

Tequila stopped with him, but it took her human ears longer to pick up on what he'd heard. She glanced at him when the sounds reached her and raised an eyebrow.

"Watch your fire," He whispered, "I want one alive."

She nodded, "Leader or lackey?"

Nihlus decided he liked her a great deal more. "Leader." He tilted his head and they continued, voices growing louder as they went.

"Alpha team come in," A human male demanded, "Alpha team! …Bravo team come in! Delta Team, come in." A pause as his mean finally responded. "Goddamnit where is everyone? There are two of them for christ's sake!" Another pause, "What do you mean there'll all gone?"

The man's voice grew more frantic as the report continued. He was yelling himself hoarse by the time they reached the door his voice came from. Tequila took the left, Nihlus took the right. She nodded, and he spun and kicked in the door.

The merc was pacing with one hand to his ear, armored in what looked to be standard Onyx gear for the Systems Alliance. He looked up mid-sentence, mouth gaping in shock, and dove for his assault rifle resting on the table. Nihlus reached him first, smashing the butt of his gun into the man's chin, and kneeing him in the chest before dragging him by the shoulder to slam against the wall.

"Call you back Delta team," He whimpered and cut off communications.

"Where's your database?" Nihlus demanded.

The mercenary leader seemed to regain control of his faculties, and tried to do the same with the situation. He squared his shoulders, "Who the fuck-"

Nihlus punched in the gut, the blow doubling him over despite his light armor, and quickly pulled him back upright. "Your database."

Before he could think about answering, a barrage of footsteps came stampeding down the hall, giving Nihlus enough warning to spin and place the leader between him and the doorway. Three more mercs burst into the room, who looked as though they'd been in the midst of playing Skyllian Five.

Only two were armed; the third was still holding his hand of cards, and could hope to do little more than give the intruders a paper cut. None of them had armor.

"Drop your weapons," Nihlus demanded. He didn't want to worry about holding the leader hostage in the midst of a firefight, and Tequila had as little armor as the mercenaries. It would have been messy, complicated.

"Sir?" The human holding the cards dropped them, and Nihlus might have laughed if one of the other mercenaries wasn't levering a shotgun at his human.

Nihlus nudged the leader's head with his assault rifle and the merc swore in surrender, "Fuck, do it."

No sooner had they disarmed themselves when three shots rang out, and each merc fell with a precise hole to the head. Executioner style, clean and simple, Tequila had gotten rid of them. She shrugged when the two men left in the room stared at her. "I like your gun," she grinned at him, tapping his sidearm on her thigh.

"They surrendered," The leader screamed when his shock wore off, smacking the System's Alliance star on his chest, "You can't just shoot us all! We're with the Alliance!"

"You're dishonorably discharged." She glared at him. The odd one-liner reminded Nihlus of Saren and made him feel more at ease. Saren had despised traitors as well.

"Your database," Nihlus growled a third time.

"Fuck, alright," He yielded, though he seemed more afraid of Tequila than Nihlus. Rightly so, he reasoned. She looked a mess. "We have some terminals in the back, but we wipe them every month, they only have the recent shit. Shit not done in person. We're clean as a baby's bottom; you got no evidence to take us down."

"Let's go," Nihlus pushed him; the merc staggered forward, glanced at his gun and got another kick for it. He walked without delay after that, but kept talking, a defensive mechanism that would come in handy. Tequila occasionally glanced at the gun he'd loaned her and smiled when the merc went silent, and he abruptly began babbling again.

"Come on, what do you guys want? This is some shit raid. You want creds? We divvy 'em up after every job, you won't find anything. You're wasting your time, you may as well let me go."

"This looks like it," Tequila noted, doing a quick sweep of the room in case the merc had led them into a trap. The Terra Libera leader was right, it was hardly impressive. A few personal terminals and a mainframe crawling up the back wall like ivy, likely for little more than calls and credit transfers. Still, the group might broker information in addition to assassinations, something they'd never know unless they checked. "I'll check it out," His human offered, seating herself in front of a terminal and opening her omnitool, effectively leaving him to his interrogation.

"Come on, man, you got the intel, you don't need me," The leader started panicking again when Nihlus grabbed him by his collar and dragged him into the next room. When he realized betraying his gang wouldn't get him off scot-free, he got desperate.

As Nihlus picked him and bodily heaved him into what seemed to be the mainframe's maintenance room, he spun and pulled a knife from some hidden pocket in his armor. He went for Nihlus' face, the only unarmored part of his body. Nihlus fell back, bringing his assault rifle up as a shield. The blade skimmed across the metal with an ear-piercing screech, and Nihlus leaned in to smash the butt of his gun into the merc's throat.

He almost lost a finger to the knife for his efforts, but the merc fell back gasping and choking, dropping the blade. Nihlus kicked it aside, and locked his assault rifle onto his back. The merc fell to his knees, struggling to breathe, and Nihlus knelt next to him.

"I can't say I didn't expect you to try something stupid. You took a job to kill a Spectre, so you're obviously not the brightest person."

"Didn't-" the merc hacked, coughing up blood, "didn't say you were a Spectre."

"You know what I'm talking about then," Nihlus noted conversationally, "Good, that will save time. Who hired you?"

"I don't know," He rasped, inhaling deeply to get air back into his lungs. Nihlus grabbed his wrist and broke one of his fingers, turning the gasp into a scream. "I don't know!" The merc roared, diving forward in an attempt to wrestle his captor. Nihlus elbowed him in the face and he fell back with a bloodied and broken nose. "I don't know," He repeated, coughing and spraying blood on Nihlus armor. "Don't ask questions, bad for business. We take credits, not names." He took a moment to gather himself before he continued. "Look, I knew it was a bad job, but you don't turn down that kind of money."

"You knew?" Nihlus tilted his head at him. The human flinched, realizing he'd used the wrong turn of phrase. When he didn't continue, Nihlus reached for another finger. The human panicked, throwing himself into the wall behind him.

"Yes! Look, okay, guy who got the offer… he got it on a call, no names, no nothing, just the job and the creds. We couldn't even trace it, but… it didn't matter to him, and hell, with the creds it didn't matter to us, but this was different. He was obsessed, talked about how important it was, like it was our damn destiny or something. But he wouldn't help us trace you down, he'd just sit there and play the call over and over…"

"Do you still have the recording?" Nihlus asked. The human lowered one eyebrow, likely trying to think if he could use it as leverage. Nihlus tugged on one of his talons in a seemingly idle motion. The merc got the hint.

"I-No. We deleted it, we already had the intel. Just your ship ID. Hell man, until we looked it up, I didn't even know your name."

"Few people do," Nihlus chuckled. The mercenary didn't seem to know whether that was a good or bad sign.

"But look, when we deleted it, our guy went nuts. It was just a damn machine voice over or recording or something, but he lost it. Turned on his friends over a fucking voicemail. We were already on the job or we would have dropped it, but then we got another call, double the pay if we took out the woman you were with."  
"And that call?" The merc turning on his gang didn't concern him in the slightest. Mercenaries were always out for themselves. Odd the Terra Libera leader didn't realize that.

"Wiped it as soon as it came in, I swear." He swallowed, cradling his hand with the broken finger nervously. "No signal trace, nothing."

Nihlus trapped his talons along his knee. None of the information was helpful. A lot of Terminus groups would be able to block a signal trace and find out his ship's ID. What struck him as odd was their willingness to double the offer to take out both him and his human. Perhaps they feared he'd been meeting with an Alliance representative to change the beacon pick-up. Good tech, bad intel. Typical Terminus. "How much were you offered?"

"Not enough." The merc snorted, then gave a nervous chuckle. "That's all I know. Come on, man, lemme go. It was nothing personal," He'd started begging. It was the clearest sign a subject had no more useful intel. Saren liked to 'make sure.' Nihlus didn't. "A job's a job."

Nihlus stood up and took a few steps back. The merc breathed a sigh of relief, assuming he was letting him go, when he drew his assault rifle. "This is _my_ job." Nihlus said simply before he killed him.

A rap on the door came just a few seconds later. "Supernova?" His human called through the nearly-sound proof material. Evidently it hadn't blocked out the gunfire.

"Tequila," He yelled back. She went silent, and he guessed she went back to the terminal. Nihlus glanced back at the body. They hadn't taken out all of Terra Libera. From the leader's earlier call, a third squad was searching for them outside, something they'd have to take care of before they left.

Nihlus keyed in his comm to station security's frequency, and got a response moments later. "Earth L5 station security, what is your emergency?" A pleasant female voice greeted him, thankfully not automated.

"This is Nihlus Kyrik with Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. A security threat in Sector 47h has been dealt with. You'll want to send a team to do a sweep, though the area should be all clear by the time they get here. I'll send a mission report within the next solar day through proper channels."

"Copy that, Spectre. Officer Mikel informed us of your mission," Tequila. He should have barred the bathroom door. "And we thank you for your assistance," The voice chimed, sounding genuinely thankful. "We have an investigation in progress on your hotel for the security breach, and we can have you moved anywhere on the station whenever you'd like."

Nihlus had been pacing throughout the call, a habit born more of boredom than nerves, but stopped to consider the offer. "Belay that," He decided finally, "I think I know a place where I can stay."


	11. Collapse

Collapse

Shepard threw herself down in front of a terminal as soon as the three of them reached the mainframe. It wasn't so much that she enjoyed techwork, as much as it was that she just wanted to sit down. Part of her felt guilty for not helping Supernova with his interrogation, (she knew the merc was more scared of her), and the other part of her was too damn tired to care.

She copied the files and what credits they had stored in their database to her omnitool. As much as she hated to admit it, she'd eventually have to return her turian's side arm. When that happened, she'd be short one pistol and have to purchase a new one. Unless she wanted to explain to the requisition office how her pistol had jammed with foam from an explosion she'd caused during an unsanctioned raid on an organized mercenary base on one of Earth's most populous stations.

Since that was out of the question, she'd have to find a way to fund said new pistol. And as far as she was concerned, she was performing a public service recycling the mercenaries' ill gotten funds. Ethically at ease, Shepard turned her attention back to the files.

They were encrypted, as was to be expected from any proper mercenary group, but if she set her terminal to it they could be decrypted overnight, so it wasn't necessarily something she had to worry about right now. When the files finished copying, she turned her attention to what remnants she might be able to glean from the older transactions they'd deleted. She started digging through the mainframe and local terminal back-ups when the sound of gunfire from the backroom bolted her from her chair and to the door.

"Supernova?" She hollered, banging on the door with the butt of her borrowed gun.

"Tequila." He yelled back. Just finished off the mercenary then. Shepard dragged herself back to the chair and glanced back at the terminal. The system recovery stared back at her. She rested her arms on the desk with a sigh. With all the advancements humanity had made, they still had to wait on technology.

As she draped her arms across the desk, she blinked in surprise. She was covered in blood, and couldn't help but wonder how much of it was hers. Where there wasn't blood, there was ash. Where there wasn't ash, there was more blood. Shepard wondered, idly, how much blood she'd lost, and found the thought made her lightheaded. She raised her finger tips to her forehead and lightly touched the make-shift bandage that had once been her sleeve.

It was cracked with dried blood, and she made a mental note to use medigel on her injuries when she didn't have to worry about ultrasound emitters. Like now, waiting on the computer, where she didn't have to worry about anything, and she could put her head down for a minute…

She woke to someone shaking her wildly. She responded to the thrashing by thrashing back, and was rewarded with a satisfying thump as her fist connected with Supernova's face. He recoiled with a grunt, rubbing the side of his head and looking at her with indignation. "You'll sleep the day away," He chided jokingly, but Shepard swore she saw concern in his eyes.

"Just skipping to the good part," She returned, rubbing the cramp out of her neck. Did she look bad enough that he'd actually been worried she wouldn't wake up? "Learn anything useful?"

"Nothing I didn't already suspect." He straightened upright. "What did you find?"

Shepard glanced back at the screen, where the system recovery had finished, and was rewarded with a few fragmented files she could go over later. For now, they'd have to worry about the Delta team that was combing the rubble searching for them. "It's all encrypted," She explained, copying the last files to her omnitool.

He nodded, "Later then." He focused on her with more intensity than usual, likely concerned she wouldn't be up to the challenge. Shepard shoved herself out of her seat and crossed her arms across her chest, staring back at him. Fatigue be damned, she always ready for a fight. He seemed to debate calling her out, when he finally thought better of it and tilted his head to the side. Shepard levered her gun and followed him out of the room.

"I have a thought," He filled the silence as they made their way through the base, both on alert for the Delta team and trying to find their way out.

"Just the one?" Shepard threw back.

"I try not to overdo it." His mandibles flickered, which Shepard was starting to realize was a grin. Yesterday she couldn't even tell his smirks from his frowns. "But speaking of overdoing it, if this is a first date, I don't know how I'm going to manage a second."

"You're assuming there'll be a second," Shepard pointed out.

"Won't there be." It didn't sound like a question. Smug bastard. She liked him.

"If I say no, will you leave me here to die?"

He pretended to consider it with a deliberate pause, though he was simply checking around an upcoming corner, before he pointed out "You still have my gun."

"True." Shepard bit her lip. Maybe it was the blood loss, or maybe it was him, but she wanted to laugh, and was afraid if she started she wouldn't stop.

He glanced back at her, "I like my gun."

"I bet you do." She snorted, right when they found the stairs out.

Which were, as the cluster of mercenaries at the top reminded them, also the stairs in.

Both of them dove back the way they'd came right as a hail of gunfire smattered across the space they'd occupied moments previously.

"So," Supernova began conversationally as the barrage didn't let up. "Why did you join the military?"

"Oh you know," Shepard grinned, pleased he was willing to play her game, "See the galaxy. Meet interesting people." _Kill them_. "… kill them." He leaned out from cover and fired a few warning rounds, only to roll back in a moment later. Their position was hardly optimal. "You?"

"My mother made me," He returned, doing his best to sound childish. Shepard laughed, and as she feared, couldn't stop laughing. Not wanting to sound hysterical, she bit her lip and giggled to herself. A light blue shimmered around her turian, the classic sign of kinetic barriers flaring back to life. He took one more shot from cover before gesturing down the hall.

She nodded. They had to retreat to one of the rooms and take up a more defensive position when the Delta team advanced down the stairs. Shepard started backing up when a flash-grenade hit the floor and went off in her face.

Seeing spots and duplicates, Shepard back-pedaled down the hall and stumbled backwards into the first room she reached. Supernova followed after, or at least she hoped he did, as she leaned her back against the wall and rubbed furiously at her eyes. She felt an ocular migraine coming on to add to her lengthy list of symptoms.

"I estimate around ten," Announced a red blur she was assumed was her turian. "See if you can manage some cover," He ordered, leaning out from the door and opening fire on the first wave of mercs to come down the stairs. "Nine." He corrected himself, or corrected them.

Shepard's vision finally came back to her, and she took stock of the room she'd blundered into. It looked to be sleeping quarters, and she went immediately to one of the weapon's lockers. It was empty, as were the next four down the line, but the fifth had exactly what she was looking for. Grenades.

Shepard was sure her face lit up like a child in a candy store, but she could have cared less. She snatched the bundle up and rushed back to him. He glanced at her in confusion, and she held out a grenade to him. "First time for everything," She offered with regards to his no-frag rule.

He opened his mouth to say something, then quickly changed his mind. He took the grenade and flung it down the hall, where it blew a moment later. "Let's move," He said simply, moving back out into the corridor.

That fragging one's way in to any hold-out was a valid a military tactic had never ceased to please Shepard. With enough ordnance you could make it in and out of anywhere. Her belief held true as they advanced. Her wall of turian took the brunt of what little fire they received, he kept up a nigh-constant stream of fire from his assault rifle, and she added explosives where the mercenaries clustered.

Thankfully, they'd apparently shared Supernova's belief that grenades were unviable amidst the renovation outside, and hadn't brought any with them. Despite their upward climb, the two of them made it out of the base in record time.

"There, you see," Shepard panted, proud of their explosive march, "All your concerns about grenades being tactically unsound and structurally unviable were completely blown out of-"

The balcony above them collapsed.

The two of them dove the moment they heard the awkward creak, leaping forward into a pile of bolts and rubble that was just one of many in the renovated perimeter. The balcony crashed down where they'd been standing, flooring and railing shattering around them, flying over them, and smashing into them. A mushroom cloud of dust burst from the pile of wreckage, settling in the air and making her sneeze.

Groaning, Shepard pushed herself upright. Bits of rubble and strips of metal fell off her prone form as it eased itself to sitting. She threw a board off her legs and sneezed again at the dust it dredged up.

Her turian dug himself out of a pile of rubble next to her, glancing over both of them for any serious injuries. A trickle of blue blood ran from the corner of his mouth and helped with the sarcastic quip that followed. "You were saying?"


	12. Magnitude

Magnitude

Everything's fine until it's not. That particular belief had been a minor point of contention between him and Saren. Saren had felt you could prepare for anything. Nihlus felt you had to be prepared for anything. The differences were slight, but they were there.

So when the balcony crashed down on top of him and his human, he was hardly surprised. He'd expected something like this to happen, given the way his day was turning out. Breakfast became battle, infiltration became assault, walking across the floor became falling through it…

All that, given his life as a Spectre, didn't surprise him. What surprised him was that he was laughing as he dug himself out of a pile of rubble. Not so much because of everything that had gone wrong, but because despite it all their 'date' had gone right. Tequila laughed along with him, and he heaved her out of a similar pile.

She kept her hands on his arms, and replaced her laughter with a raised eyebrow. Human emotions flared so quickly across their faces, bright bursts like mini-supernovas. Yet after only a day with one, he was getting better at recognizing them. There was another surprise.

Going on instinct, he did what he would have done if she was a turian, and grazed the side of her neck with his teeth. Her reaction reminded him that she was, in no way, turian. Blunted teeth tried to return the gesture, something that would have been a point of contention for dominance in his culture. But her teeth were flat and harmless, and when they ran over his neck, felt warm with affection and not desire.

Her words felt just the opposite. "Your place or mine?"

"I have reports to file." Which was true, but not at all what he'd meant to say. So why had he said it?

"Yeah, right." She released him and backed up like she'd been burned. She rubbed the back of her neck with her hands, as if she didn't know what to do with them now. "Of course." _Humans are meddlesome._

"We should leave before security arrives." He tilted his head towards the southern exit. He'd locked it during his sweep, but a canister of omnigel made short work of his override. "How did you get in here?" He asked over his shoulder as he worked. He'd locked down the entire sector. _Always where they don't belong_.

"Took the elevator." _They lie._

"It's out of order."

Tequila shrugged disinterestedly, "If you say so." _And then they leave_.

Except she didn't. They ended up taking the slow, moving walkway back - a feature most human stations had along their walls. Her offhanded explanation for accompanying him had been to give a report to security at his room and retrieve her shirt. That and he still needed to get a copy of the intel she'd downloaded on an OSD.

She stood just slightly in front of him, leaning heavily against the railing of the walkway. She seemed exhausted, ready to fall over at any minute. He took a step closer and put his arm around her to hold onto the railing. Just so she didn't collapse on him and somehow set off a grenade in the process.

She leaned back against him instantly, and might have closed her eyes and fallen asleep standing for all he knew. Then it finally occurred to him why he'd backed off.

This, whatever this was, was already too familiar. She got in the way of the mission, a rekindling of Saren's tale of Sidon that seemed almost to the letter. He didn't even know her name, and was already completely comfortable with the thought of bunking with her and letting the paperwork keep for another day.

She'd complicate things. She was already complicating things. And, prepared for anything, he'd found a way to deal with it without even realizing it. "I do have reports to file," He repeated, half to her and half to himself.

Tequila nodded against his armor. It couldn't have been comfortable. "M'too. Hafta tell Steven," she mumbled half asleep.

But it-this was comfortable. It-this shouldn't have been comfortable.

But Nihlus didn't care about that right now. What he cared about was what other people cared about. Everyone they passed on their slow, idle ride, all but gaped openly. They caught more than a few stares from her ragged appearance. Most of them derailed into glares at him and hushed whispers, making their assumptions more than obvious. Nihlus met their looks head on, his arm inadvertently tightening around his human.

He started growling and was barely aware. No turian would come to the conclusions the humans were. There was no greater insult in his culture, and no greater crime. Both the perpetrator and their superior were stripped of their citizenship and banished from Hierarchy space, regardless of what tier they'd previously occupied.

A cluster of humans scattered under his icy glare when Tequila nudged him with her elbow. "Not helping your case, tiger." So she was awake.

"It's an insult to us both." Nihlus explained.

"You're pretty on edge." She noted.

"I don't like standing still," He offered. He didn't like a lot of things, few of which could be helped right now.

"We're not."

"That's not what I-" He stopped and glanced down at her. She'd tilted her head back and was grinning up at him. He chuckled, more at himself than her joke. He'd been about to go into a detailed lecture on the laws of physics; he must be tired.

His body agreed with the sudden realization. He'd paraded it around in heavy armor for half the day and it was in no mood to walk. Or do much of anything until he'd had a shower and a nap. Tequila was still staring at him, small fangs and flat teeth. _Much of anything_, his body repeated, side-cramping for emphasis. _Besides_, his brain added as the walkway came to an end at his hotel, _you turned down her offer_.

Nihlus keyed into the hotel and they took the elevator up to his apartment. Tequila hummed along with the music perfectly and he couldn't help but give her a look. She shrugged, looking sheepish. "X57 Radio. I know all their songs."

He was shaking his head when they exited. His hotel room was clustered with civilians and security alike taking in the damage, separated from each other by little more than a holographic police line. _And now you have no place to stay_.

Security cleared a quick path for them, the police line blinking red as they crossed it. Nihlus couldn't help but snort at how ineffectual it was, and yet it seemed to be working. Civilians clustered as close as they could get to the scene of the crime, but never crossed the line. They looked on with awe and envy as he and Tequila passed, as if the hologram was some invisible barrier only they could cross.

One of the medics saw Tequila and nearly dove to reach her, assaulting her with medigel and questions. An officer noted the commotion and added his own questions to the fray, trying to get a statement while the medic swabbed at Tequila's face. Trapped, she gave Nihlus a pleading look.

"I'll get an OSD," He announced, and quickly vanished into his apartment, leaving her at their mercy. His room was ruined, the entry door fused open, his bathroom door on the fritz, opening and closing with spurts of static, ruined from whatever override Tequila had run on it.

The walls and nearly every piece of furniture were peppered with bullet holes, but the worst of the damage came from the kitchen. It was a charred mass of black from a minor explosion, and he settled his gaze on the ruined oven, a melted pan that had once held eggs resting on the burner. They'd left the oven on.

"Ah, Agent Kyrik! The hotel cannot even begin to express its sincerest-" A man in a formal suit stumbled out of the once-kitchen and pushed a security officer aside. Likely a hotel insurance agent, trying to make sure he wouldn't sue, and wasting his time.

"I'm just here for my things." He stepped past him and a security guard dragged the anxious employee away. Unlocking the small drawer beside his bed and retrieving an OSD, he stopped and stared. The only other thing inside was his laptop. Save for a change of clothes, the rest of what he owned was on his back.

Well, almost all of what he owned. His human still had his gun. He could get a new gun. Could he get a new human? _They're all the same_…

Nihlus shook himself and pushed Saren's echo out of his head. He snatched up his laptop and made a decision. He did have reports to file, but they didn't have to be done here or now. He was set to march out of his apartment with such purpose he almost forgot to get Tequila's shirt.

He spotted her some meters outside the security zone, wrapped in bandages and medigel and holding an icepack to her scowling face. Her face darkened when she saw him, "No one tried to swaddle you in bandages. There's a double-standard if I ever saw one." Her eyes darted to his laptop, then back to him in confusion. "That's… a pretty big OSD." She noted, taking her shirt but making no effort to put it on.

He coughed and straightened upright, "I seem to find myself in a bit of a predicament." The char on his armor and the dried blood on his mouth ruined whatever suave element he'd hoped to uphold.

Tequila didn't seem to notice. She folded her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow at him, "You don't say."

"The room I was staying in is currently in need of a door," He pointed over his shoulder, "Which leaves me currently in need of a new room."

She chewed on her lip. "That is quite the predicament."

"If nothing else," He wasn't going to back down. They'd already agreed to a second date – kind of. "I believe it's proper chivalry to walk the lady home after a first date."

She shook her head ruefully, and latched herself onto his arm. "And here I thought we'd just frag and never see each other again."

"No you didn't."

"No, I didn't."


	13. Radiant

Radiant

Shepard was in a relatively good mood, as she imagined she should be, taking her date home with her. Though there had been that awkward ride back to his apartment where he seemed to be reconsidering, _whatever the hell that was about_, it had passed quickly enough.

Which was just as well, because it had made her want to start reconsidering - why she felt so comfortable in the arms of a turian, a stranger, a man she referred to as Supernova, for christ's sake. All's well that ends well, she decided when he asked to come back to her place, and gave it no more thought.

Ends well… her place… shit.

She'd rented a room inadvertently in the middle of Terra Firma central. A room that barely fit one person, let alone two. Struck by a serious case of room envy, Shepard chewed on her lip. Well, if he said anything, she'd punch him. Case closed.

If she could manage the effort, her body reminded her. Her arms were lined in superficial wounds, but the injury on her leg was enough to make her want to limp. A light blue line of medigel ran across her face where the shrapnel had hit her, (_disinfect to protect_, Sirta Foundation's ad chimed in her head), but it would likely leave a scar. Bruises, a minor wrist sprain the medic had braced, and a migraine that would make an L2 cringe in empathy topped it all off.

The migraine was the only part that bothered her. She was wondering if Supernova had any similar symptoms when she realized what had caused it. She hadn't had anything to drink or eat all day. "You wanna grab a bite?" She stopped short, already bringing up a map of the station to find the nearest food-court.

"Only if you put your shirt on." He shifted his laptop to his other hand.

Ah. Right. Shepard shrugged out of her jacket and pulled her shirt on over her head, an awkward fumbling task with a brace on her left wrist. Then she stopped and looked at her jacket. It only had one sleeve now, no thanks to someone. She'd have to get a new one.

Shrugging, she tossed it in the nearest waste bin when she remembered she'd left her credit chit in the pocket. "Chit! Shit!" She squeaked, opening the bin and staring down into the abyss.

A loud guffaw brought her head back up and she scowled. Supernova was laughing and trying to cover it up with a cough, and having a terrible time with it. "Wait here, I'll get you something," He snorted, and walked away chuckling to himself.

"No don-" Shepard cringed then sighed. She didn't like people paying for her. They'd just have to do dutch next time.

Turning back around, she glared at her new nemesis. Shepard never gave up without a fight. Her chit was in there somewhere, and she was going to get it back.

When she realized she couldn't reach her jacket with her arm, she went from first resort to last resort. She may not be able to physically reach it, but mentally, nothing was unattainable. Which is how she wound up covered in trash and eezo, being ticketed by a security officer for using her biotics on a waste bin, with the official charge of "littering and destruction of public property."

This day was ass.

When Supernova returned to find the area closed off to maintenance drones and her stuffing a ticket into her pocket, he hardly looked surprised. "I got you something called a corndog," He said without missing a beat, juggling a paper bag and his personal terminal. Wounded pride, beating heart.

This day was slightly less ass.

They seated themselves off to the side of the janitorial display cleaning up her mess, and he pulled a strange, disfigured _thing_ on a stick out of the same bag that had contained her corn dog and proceeded to eat with her. Couldn't be any worse than his cooking, she decided, and shrugged it off.

"Did you find your credit chit?" He asked conversationally.

"No."

"Hm."

"You don't seem surprised."

"I'm never surprised."

"Liar." Her turian remained stubbornly straight-faced.

Shepard shook her head and focused on her meal of the day. Not only was it unhealthy, it was hardly anything. Not for the first time, she resented having all of the biotic appetite and not nearly all of the biotic power.

Shepard finished her corndog and tossed her stick back in the bag, then dusted her hands off on her pants. Supernova's mandibles flickered as she did so, and she wondered idly if he found her food as revolting as she did his. Probably.

She watched him finish his snack to get rid of the rest of her appetite, before they resumed walking back to her apartment. The closer they got, the more apprehensive she felt. She kept expecting the Reds to jump them, or have Terra Firma signs light the way to her hotel, where they'd bar the doors on principle.

Nothing so dramatic happened. When they reached the lobby, however, the receptionist, a rotund man in a pressed suit, glared over the counter at them. She didn't bother to acknowledge him, or wouldn't have bothered, had he not spoken.

"Your room's only for one." The receptionist scowled at her.

"Now it's for two." She shot back. She might have done more if talons hadn't wrapped themselves around her arm and ushered her along.

"Xenofucker," The receptionist muttered loud enough for them to hear. Shepard turned, furious, when Supernova spun her back around by her shoulder, turning her 180 into a 360.

"Let it go," he sounded bored, "It doesn't matter."

But it did matter. Because that used to be her, might still be her, hating for hatred's sake. Seeing red and being Red for no reason at all. Shepard tried to think of how to tell him that was why she' talked to him in the first place, to prove that she was better than snap judgments and snide remarks.

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Her turian tilted his head at her, and Shepard swore he could read her mind when he finally tapped a talon on his markings. "You choose your company, not your clan. Let it go."

She did, for the moment. When they reached her room, Shepard felt much more at ease. She keyed open her door and stepped inside, hands on her hips. She spun in a brief circle, then started pointing around her room. "Bedroom," She gesture to the cot in the corner. "Living room," World-Wonder-Window, "Study," Desk, "Bathroom," Only other door, "Dining room," Desk again, "Kitchen." Cooler.

"Well…" Shepard shrugged, finished, "Come on in."

Supernova stood uneasily at the doorway, leaning over the threshold. "Are you sure we'll both fit?"

"Haha, very funny." Shepard muttered, going over to her cot. It folded out to fit two people, or a very large one people. She started struggling with it and left her turian to his own devices.

He set his laptop on the counter, OSD atop it, then turned his attention to his armor. "Closet," Shepard grunted, still heaving on the cot, and pointed to the chest in the wall.

When the cot finally gave a loud, angry snap to signal it had unfolded, she turned back to her turian. His guns and gloves were neatly piled in a corner, and already took up a great deal of space just waiting to be put in the closet. Supernova met her gaze and followed it, then offered sheepishly, "I'll have a new room by tomorrow."

"That'd be best, yeah." Shepard snorted and shook her head. The size of her room was just sad. She didn't want to help him put his armor away, but she could help him get out of it. She went to help him out of his chest-piece when he hissed in pain.

"Are you hurt?" She blinked, snatching her hands away.

"I'm fine." He eased far too slowly out of his upper armor for that to be true. Lying little…

Shepard brought up her omniscanner, "Let me see."

He tried to back up, but her limited living quarters gave him nowhere to run. "I'm fine."

"I'm a field medic," She ran the scanner over his chest since he couldn't escape.

"For humans." He sighed, defeated.

"Damnit, man, I'm a doctor." She shot back, then realized he wouldn't get the joke. "Just a lot of bruising, you're lucky nothing's broken…"

He huffed, "Nothing I didn't-"

"Already know." She finished for him ruefully. "I didn't know. I don't like being kept in the dark. I'll get you some ice," She ended up putting his armor away anyway. It was already making her claustrophobic.

"I just need a shower and some sleep." Finally left in nothing more than rumpled civvies, he put the rest of his armor away for her. "We can start decrypting the intel on my terminal and-"

"_My_ terminal." Shepard corrected him. His eyes narrowed.

"Isn't secure." He paced, or tried to. Shepard's room: 2. Supernova: 0.

"It also isn't portable." She noted. Nothing was stopping him from taking the intel and making a break for it. She wasn't sure why that possibility bothered her so much. She went with Occam's Razor and picked the simplest reason that came to mind: The Reds still might be involved. It might still be her fault.

He read her mind again, and took a step towards her, "I don't intend to go anywhere." He towered over her, and made the room feel even smaller, if possible.

"That's not a promise," She pointed out, keeping her voice even. He smelled like battle. Sweat, leather, burning wood and ash.

"I don't make idle promises." Clawed hands wrapped around her waist, and he tilted his head slightly to one side. It made him look feral, devilish… distracting. Clever bastard.

"My omnitool, my terminal." She frowned up at him, ignoring the perfect way his talons scratched along her sides. He released when he realized she wouldn't budge.

"Fine." She grinned. That was easy. She sat down at her terminal, transferred the intel from Terra Libera, then set the decryption. She was right, it would take all night. Stretching, she took off her wrist brace and set it on the desk. She didn't want to get it wet in the shower-which her turian was in the way off.

Shepard pushed herself out of her chair and quickly maneuvered herself between him and the restroom. "I only have the room paid up for one hot shower a day."

He opened his mouth then closed it. Then repeated the gesture. "You can't seriously expect me to take a cold shower."

She shrugged, about to say 'Maybe you need one,' when another idea struck her. Shepard languidly stretched her arms out to block the door. "That's not what I'm expecting at all."

Same expression as before, same odd flickering of his mandibles. Shock? Never surprised her ass. She was so proud of herself for catching him off guard that she wasn't expecting the tables to turn on her. Before she knew what was happening, he'd wrapped an arm around her back and one around her leg. Shepard threw her arms around his ridge and bit his neck again. Turian hickey, she'd mentally dubbed it when he did it to her before. Then her mind came back to her and she barely had time to squeak, "No wait-!" Before he'd lifted her under the shower. Which was motion sensored.

The showerhead rudely vomited steaming hot water across the both of them before they'd had the chance to undress. Supernova set her down, both of them laughing, but his breathing was labored and he clutched one hand to his side. "I don't think I can do that again," He apologized, trying not to wince from the pressure he'd subjected his bruised ribs to.

"You shouldn't have done it the first time," Shepard snickered. She didn't mind. She was tired, and all she really wanted right now was a shower. She pulled her soaked shirt over and off her head. It flopped loudly to the tiled floor, and from the way Supernova followed suit, that was all he really wanted too.

Much like it had the first time, his chest captivated and completely distracted her. The ridge that protected his neck wrapped around to link with a chest spur down where a human sternum would have been. Water from the shower caught and welled in his ridge, before cascading in a waterfall down his front, lined in leathery flesh and carapace.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware he helped them both out of the rest of their clothes. The rest of her mind was too distracted by the way his talons ran over her shoulders, the back of her neck, her own hands tracing the patterns on his chest.

One-night stands showered together. Dating couples showered together. Only showering usually wasn't all they were doing. Not that their seemingly uneventful shower was her fault. His ribs were bruised; he shouldn't be doing much of anything for a day or so.

He was beautiful. His hands never left her neck and shoulders, save to glance over her hips. He cared about such strange things. Perhaps he thought the same the way she couldn't stop staring at his chest. Turians were beautiful. Steven was wrong. She had no trouble being with them, working with them. Maybe she wasn't racist after all, though she couldn't say she felt the same about the rest of the galaxy. One race at a time, Shepard. One race at a time.

'_What's your name_?' All this, and she still didn't know. She wanted to ask. She wanted to know - a lot more than his name. Shepard knew what happened when you let things get personal, but as far as she was concerned, it was already personal. '_What's your name_?' She opened her mouth to ask, when the water turned off. She hadn't even washed her hair.

Tomorrow. She'd ask him tomorrow. When the intel had finished decrypting, they'd know who tried to kill them, and possibly have several leads to follow to take out more criminals on the station for their second date. Like that crooked customs agent, what the Reds had to do with all of this, and any Terra Libera leftovers.

Shepard dumped their clothes in the automated washer/dryer/presser in the bathroom and reaffixed her wrist brace, before they dragged themselves back to the cot in the other room. The two of them barely fit, and she had to curl against him or risk falling off. He took the only pillow, trying to stuff it between his ridge and his neck to his keep his head up and failing miserably.

"… comfy?" She asked when he gave up and let his head hang awkwardly midair.

"No." He returned immediately, catching a leg-spur on the blanket. "You?"

"Like a bed of coals." She snorted, certain his carapace would give her a rash in the morning. Maybe one of them should sleep on the floor… "Comfortable?" She asked after another minute.

"Yes." He wrapped his arm around her waist. "Very."

"Me too."


	14. Gravity

Gravity

Nihlus waited until he was certain she'd fallen asleep before switching places with the pillow. Easing himself out of bed, his talons clicked across the metal floor and he flinched. When Tequila didn't wake up, he relaxed and went to his terminal. Even when he'd settled himself in a corner and opened a text file, she didn't so much as mumble in her sleep. The woman could probably sleep through an explosion.

Access 13:45/Secure Comm Buoy #4147/Encrypt/#11353 – DA - 341

To: Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance

Cc: Earth L5 Station Security

Subject: Status Update

A mercenary group by the title of "Terra Libera" recently accepted a contract for the assassination of a Council agent. All perpetrators have been dealt with and the group destabilized. Contract was received via a coded transmission currently decrypting.

Further updates forthcoming.

~Agent Kyrik

To: Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance

Subject: Claims Investigation

Councilor Valern, I have thus far found no evidence supporting the claims of Commander Shepard's involvement in any anti-alien extremist affiliations. Charles Saracino's attempts to contact Commander Shepard are unilateral. However, based on intercepted transmissions through nonsecure comm buoys, Commander Shepard appears to have no affiliations, personal or otherwise, outside of the Systems Alliance.

Request to discontinue investigation.

~Agent Kyrik

Nihlus waited until the burst sent through Earth's comm buoy assured him his messages had been sent before wiping both from his hard drive. It was a habit Saren had instilled in him since the first day of his training: leave no tracks for anyone to follow.

Unfortunately, it was, in many ways, just a habit. While he wiped almost all of his missions' sensitive data after relaying it to the Council, his ship's ID could identify him at any dock, and from there it was just a paper trail until they reached where he was staying. Unless he went out of his way to alter ship registry information at every port, and use pre-paid credit chits. He wasn't that paranoid.

Idly crossing his arms over his bruised ribs, he wondered if maybe he should be. Closing his personal terminal, he tapped his talons along his knee. He fixed his eyes on Tequila's desk terminal, where the orange glow informed him of the intel's decryption status. Estimated time remaining: 8 Zulu hours. 10 Zulu hours. 0 Zulu Hours. 5 Zulu hours.

The numbers continued to switch and flicker inconsistently with the rate the bar crawled across the screen. He sighed. Nihlus retrieved his weapons and armor from her closet, disassembled and cleaned his guns and armor. A loud thump broke his focus half-way through. Tequila had rolled over and smacked her injured wrist on the wall. "Sic semper tyrannis," She muttered and fell back asleep.

Nihlus shook his head; there was no way he could sleep on that cardboard contraption. He guessed she must be a servicewoman to have such poor quarters. He finished going over his gear, replaced it in the closet, then checked the decryption again. 99999 Zulu hours.

Nihlus massaged away a headache trying to manifest itself into existence. Stretching, he stood and retrieved his clothes from the hamper in the restroom. The automated cleaner had washed and pressed them, but it had done so to the specifications of the tenant. His shirt and pants were creased and folded as if made for a human.

Dressing and trying to ignore the awkward way his previously perfect civvies clung and seem to have shrunk, he sat down in her apartment's only chair and rested his feet on the desk. They fell through the holographic keyboard and lit up his talons. He flexed his toes and watched the orange light shift across him. It made the leather of his feet look almost beige. Almost human. How disconcerting.

Putting on his omnitool, he accessed a less secure frequency and sent a request to station security for a new room, preferably one with a view.

It was all he ever asked for in a room. Something to remind him how large and dangerous galaxy was, and how you had to be ready for it. How you couldn't let the smaller things get in the way of the bigger picture. He glanced at over at where Tequila was splayed across the cot, blanket crumpled around her legs, mumbling military codes in her sleep.

Her personal terminal and her omnitool sat on the desk in front of him. A Spectre override on the DNA scanner would give him enough access to find out her name. _Or you could just ask her_. Or he could never ask her. It didn't matter. Just another of the smaller things, that wouldn't change who she was, or the fact that once he got what he needed he'd likely never see her again.

He woke up with a kink in his neck from falling asleep in the chair to the sound of shuffling from the restroom. His human emerged moments later fully clothed in black cargo pants tucked into oversized boots and a navy shirt. Her hair was tied back at the top of her head, shifting from red to black and looking far too much like a fringe.

"How long was I out?" He asked, massaging at the twisted knots in his body from how he'd slept.

"Well, according to the decryption status, five hours or five hundred." Tequila joked. So she hated the inefficiency too. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm-"

"Fine?" She interrupted.

"Yes." Tequila hummed in disbelief. He dropped his feet off the desk. "I can prove it." He offered.

"Can you?" She grinned. Going on two days since she'd found him buried in work at OmniTonic, and he still hadn't been with her, despite the chemistry crackling between them. It hardly bothered him. Especially not with last night, with her hands running over his chest. Her expression when he'd had his hands on her shoulders, looking up at him with more feeling than any turian had ever-

_Just a stranger you picked up in a bar. You were both tired. It meant nothing_. _Little picture, big picture_.

She dropped herself into his lap, and Nihlus was wondering why either of them had bothered getting dressed when his terminal began to beep at him. "Let it ring," Tequila growled with all the frustration he felt.

"I can't." He sighed.

"Whoever it is has it out for me," She relinquished with a sigh, rolling off him. Nihlus shook his head at the thought. It was likely the Council calling. The thought of the heart of galactic government having it out for her of all people drew a light chuckle from him. "I'll be back with…" She went to leave, likely to give him privacy and get them breakfast, "well, I don't what I'll be back with."

Nihlus quickly set up his terminal on her desk and tugged his shirt back down. The transmission was on a secure channel from the Citadel. He turned on his holo and accepted the call.

The three faces of the Citadel Council manifested on his screen. Nihlus never called the Council of his own accord, preferring to let them contact him whenever they deemed necessary. As usual, Councilor Tevos was the first to speak.

"Is this report accurate, Nihlus?" Her voice was lined in concern, and she went straight to the heart of the issue, as she always did. "You say there's been an attempt on your life?"

"Yes, Councilor." He kept his voice neutral, "The result of faulty intelligence, likely from one of the Terminus groups. They saw me speaking with an Alliance operative and must have assumed we were changing the beacon pick up."

"Have you any idea which one?" The salarian Councilor (Nihlus could never remember his name) asked.

"Not yet."

"This is… troubling," The salarian continued. _What was his name? Why was he so bad with names lately?_ "If the Terminus Systems are aware of the beacon's location, and already taking action against the Council, they could make an attempt on Eden Prime next."

"How do we know this is even related to the beacon?" Councilor Valern interrupted. Nihlus had always liked him, likely a bias from being turian, and from the same outpost colony. Still, he liked to think it was because Valern was nothing if not practical. "What if it's simply an act of revenge, or a hate crime?"

"It wasn't a hate crime." Nihlus shook his head, then added, "I've seen the difference already,"

"And Nihlus is very thorough," Councilor Tevos added, "I doubt anyone with the resources to conduct such an act of vengeance would still be alive today." Nihlus inclined his head for the praise.

"I don't think they have the resources for an all-out assault on Eden Prime." Nihlus felt compelled to note. "The job was rushed, by mercenaries and not professional assassins. If they did attempt a pick-up, it would be covert, a single ship, nothing Alliance Corsairs shouldn't be able to handle."

"One more question, Operative Kyrik," Valern spoke up, "Your request to discontinue monitoring Commander Shepard…"

"Any more relevant intel will have to come from meeting her in person."

"Understood. " Tevos ended the meeting, as she always did. "Good luck out there." The call terminated.

Nihlus closed his terminal and leaned back in the chair. The Council was taking the matter more seriously than he'd thought they would. Which he supposed made sense. The beacon could be one of the biggest discoveries in Council space, and if there was any chance this recent attack was related, they'd be interested.

_What if wasn't?_ He wondered idly. _What else would it be about_?

Tequila chose that moment to return with a bulbous pastry stuffed in her mouth, and a tray filled with a mixture of dextro and levo foods. Nihlus tried to keep from wrinkling his nose and failed as she set the tray down in front of him and waited for approval.

It was filled with things that no proper turian would ever have for breakfast. Children snacks shaped like nathaks, desserts, and a packet of mixed vegetables. There was even quarian nutrient paste.

"The turian at the kiosk said this was like human coffee," Tequila added, hoping up to sit on the desk for lack of another chair. She handed him a Paragade, and took a sip of her own drink. Nihlus knew what coffee was. Paragade was in no way like coffee.

Well… she'd tried.

He went for the nathak-snacks and was considering one of the desserts when her terminal blipped a completed decryption. Tequila and all her limps flung themselves off the desk, spraying him with crumbs, and she quickly leaned over him to type away at her terminal.

Lines of code streamed across the screen, and he didn't have to tell her to piece together what she could about the assassination attempt.

After a few red flashes and error screens, she managed to get some semblance of the original audio file for them to listen to. Nihlus opened his mouth to tell her to wait, but she pressed play before the words came out.

He shook himself. The call wouldn't have any personal information. The mercenary hadn't known his name, or that he was a Spectre. Tequila wouldn't find out either from one garbled transcript.

The first part of the message was static, crackling and unintelligible. "-must be eliminated-" A robotic voice announced. It spoke slow and deliberately, underlined with intelligence, as if whoever had wanted him dead had masked their true voice with an automated one. Why computerized? Why not just synthesize something generic? "-cannot interfere." More missing data. "-credits not a-" then the file ended.

"Well that was unhelpful." Tequila sighed.

"Any recovered signal trace?" Nihlus pressed, wishing the haptic-interface was keyed to the accelerometers in his finger tips so he could do it himself. "An original comm buoy to lock onto?"

"No, nothing," She muttered, files flashing across the scene, "It's like the message wasn't even sent through a comm buoy, just went straight from the sender to the receiver." She stopped searching and chewed on her lower lip.

"Perhaps you just can't recognize the code." Nihlus suggested. Tequila glared at him.

"I use to hack terminals and follow signal tracing for a living. I know what I'm doing." She turned her back to him and went back to work on the terminal. Still standing up. Wrapping his talons around her waist he pulled her into his lap while she went through the rest of the files. She stiffened, then relaxed.

Since that was the closet he'd ever come to apologizing, he was glad she readily accepted the gesture. He didn't like playing any of the usual games that came with relationshi-apologies. Games that came with apologies.

"Hmm, what's this…" Tequila mumbled, and opened a new audio file.

"Got a tip from Curt Weisman, saw a turian who might be the guy we're looking for with some bitch he used to know." A gritty male voice said.

"How much was the tip?" The merc he was calling, a man with a nasally voice, wanted to know.

"Said the intel's free long as we take her out too. Told you this arrangement was a good idea."

"Curt Weisman…" His human mumbled, tapping her nails through the keyboard. "Can you look him up?"

Nihlus brought his omnitool up off to the side. She shifted in his lap so she could see the holographic display that came from his palm. "Owner of Club Redshift, in sector 47a. Fairly close to the Terra Libera base, seems like an obvious hideout for anyone we missed. Shouldn't be difficult to find him."

"That club has to have a list of employees," She was chewing on her lip and seemed anxious, though Nihlus wasn't sure why. A few clicks through public sectors, without any hacking, found him the club's information. He expanded the list of names so they could read them easier, and his human went unusually still.

"What is it?"

"I know him…" She whispered, "I know all those people."


	15. Redshift

Redshift

"_You hit me," The boy whimpered. He was her size, so it was fair. Not like when the bigger kids hit the smaller ones._

_ "This is my spot," She clenched her fists, ready for a fight. She was always ready for a fight. "I'm the lookout here. The Reds said so." _

_ "I didn't know." The other child sniffled. She'd heard him crawling up the vents. They stopped here, on the roof that overlooked the street. The Reds told her to watch for pigs and sirens. If she did her job right, she could be one someday. _

_ "Well…now you do." Her hands started to unclench. He looked like he was going to cry. She didn't know what to do, so she said the first thing that came to mind, "Reds don't cry."_

_ "Are you one?" His eyes went wide in awe. They shimmered, like oil that pooled in the streets after rain. They were pretty. She didn't want him to cry. _

_ "No." She sat down to show she wouldn't hit him again. He rubbed the side of his face, smearing dirt over the bruise. She wondered if his hair was really black, or just like that because he'd never had a bath. _

_He had dirt-brown shorts that used to be pants, and that was it. She had a jacket she could use as a blanket. He eyed it and she glared at him. It was hers. He rubbed his neck and sheepishly looked away._

_ "I like your hair." He offered._

_ "Why?" She frowned. She didn't like her hair. "Cause it makes me look like a Red?" _

_ "No… cause it's pretty."_

_ "Oh…" She stared out over the street so he couldn't see her face. He could stay, but she still had to watch for pigs and sirens. _

_ "I'm Curt." He shuffled over to sit near the edge with her. She wanted to tell him not to. She'd seen the Reds push people over the edge. "What's your name?"_

_ "I don't know." She pulled her legs up and hugged them. Names were dumb. It didn't make her anything more than a street rat._

_ "Maybe it's Rose." He smiled, he was missing teeth. "You know. Cause your hair." _

_ She wrinkled her nose. "That's sounds girly."_

_ "So?" He blinked. "You're a girl."_

_ "So girls aren't tough. I'm tough." She shook a fist at him and he balked. "I'm gonna be a Red." _

_ He sat up straighter, though eyed her waving fist, and rubbed where she'd hit him again. "I know. I'm gonna be a Red too. We could be Reds together." _

_ "… okay."_

_ "Can I call you Rose?"_

_ "… okay."_

Club Redshift. Well, Curt had never been very creative. Shepard stared at the list of names, and recognized far too many. Curt, who'd given her her first nickname. Jason, who'd introduced her to dusting. Jimmy, who'd been with her on her first raid…

"We should go now, when there are fewer civilians." Supernova interrupted her, closing his omnitool. Ginger's name vanished from the air, who'd held her hair back when she'd thrown up after her first kill, whispering _'It's okay, I won't tell anyone_.'

"What do you mean go now?" She snapped, spinning in his lap to glare at him.

"You were right; your old gang was involved in the attack," He explained, in a bored, detached tone, as if talking to a child. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. "Which means they might know something. We delay this and the trail might go cold."

"This?" Shepard shoved herself off him and backed up a few steps. "What is this?"

"You know what 'this' is." He pushed himself up and went to her closet to get his armor.

Shepard scrambled for an argument, something logical, not based in the roaring turmoil of emotion that screamed from her memories. They weren't necessarily good memories, but they were the only ones she had. "We can't just assault a bar in the middle of the day on a hunch."

He glanced over his shoulder with a look she took for disbelief. "They tried to kill you."

"Because I was with you!" Shepard snapped, then bit her lip. Supernova turned back around and went back to putting on his armor as if he hadn't heard her. Shepard took a deep breath and pressed the heels of her palms into her forehead. "Look," She tried again, walking over to put a hand on his shoulder. "Just let me talk to them."

"You should stay here," He shrugged her hand off, "You're not thinking rationally."

"Of course I'm not!" The best proof to that statement was that she was debating hitting him over the head with his own terminal to knock him unconscious. "The Reds may not have been family, but I had a place there, can't you relate to that?"

"No." She stared at his back and blinked hard twice. He elaborated as he dressed, each sentence punctuated with the click of his gear snapping into place. "I'm an only child, my father died when I was sixteen, and my mother abandoned me to the military the next day. I was from a mercenary outpost, outside the Hierarchy, so I never had a place there, either." He stood up, fully armored, and snapped his guns onto his back. "So no, I can't relate."

Shepard's reacted instantly. She dove for his sidearm on her table, smacked the emergency override lock on her door, and pointed the gun at his face. "Then relate to this."

"They're murderers and terrorists, and you're defending them?" The gun was for show; she had no kinetic barriers and he was fully armored. He could have killed her if he wanted to, but she had to make a point.

"We're both murderers," as far as she was concerned. He didn't argue.

"And terrorists?" He folded his arms over his chest.

"Everybody needs a hobby." She smiled and was sure it didn't reach her eyes.

They stood at a standstill, and he took several steps forward until he was at point blank range, making his kinetic barriers useless. He raised an arm and she wondered if he was going to knock her out and throw her in the bathroom again, but all he did was gently lower the gun. "So what's your suggestion?"

"You let me talk to them." She flicked the safety and stuffed the gun in the back of her pants, pulling her shirt down over it.

"And when that doesn't work?" She tried to glare at him and failed. She could barely meet his eyes. Shepard didn't know whether to be amused or ashamed by the irony. She'd started her shore leave trying to prove she wasn't a Red, and ended up defending them instead. _You were born one of us_.

"_If_ that doesn't work…" she thumped a fist on his armor, not that he could feel it, and rested her forehead on his chest. "Then we'll see what happens. But we don't run in balls first, guns blazing…" Coming from her the irony physically stung. Or perhaps the sting came from the knowledge that that was probably what they'd have to do. "I know them; I know all of them…"

"Alright." Talons wrapped around her shoulders and stayed there. Shepard sighed. He couldn't even relate and was still willing to put up with her bullshit. Maybe it was bullshit, but just because she'd left didn't mean she wanted them all dead… did it? "I can't believe I'm agreeing to this."

"Me neither," She forced a laugh, "You must be pretty desperate."

"So it seems."

Shepard lightly smacked his face. "You don't have to agree so fast." Shepard pushed away from him and unlocked the door, then rubbed the back of her neck. "Okay, you'll need to walk drag. If they see us together-"

"I can guess." He interrupted humorlessly.

"Give me some time to talk to them. Find out what they know."

"How much time?"

"Half an hour."

"Twenty minutes."

"Fine." Shepard huffed, and then rummaged through her closet for a few flash grenades. She stuffed them into the pockets of her cargo pants to her turian's bemused snort.

"I'm surprised they're not under your pillow." He commented when she ignored him.

"Haha." Shepard muttered. Satisfied her gun and grenades were well-hidden, she put on her omnitool and unlocked her apartment. The two of them left and made their way from the hotel. A new receptionist sat behind the counter with the morning and gave them no trouble.

"Twenty minutes." Shepard repeated while they stood waiting for the elevator to take them to sector 47a. "Don't just use me as a distraction to slip in the back."

"I don't give my word lightly." He glanced down at her, mandibles twitching in what she took to be mildly insulted.

"S'what I'd do." She mumbled in explanation. An awkward silence filled the rest of the ride, and Shepard decided if she was stupid enough to start a conversation in an elevator she deserved it.

One of the clearest signs that they'd reached Red territory was that there wasn't an alien in sight. Shepard glanced at the giant wall of turian that stepped out of the elevator with her and cringed.

"I'll be at the back entrance. Twenty minutes." He went in the opposite direction of the club and vanished. Shepard rolled her bad shoulder back and forth, and took a deep breath. It felt easier to breathe without him around, at least in Red territory. An hour ago and it wouldn't have been harder without him. Shepard shook herself. She needed to be focused. She only had twenty minutes.

The bouncer at the door took one look at her red hair and waved her through. He looked like Jimmy, but she didn't stay long enough to make sure. It would be easier if she wasn't sure who was here and who wasn't.

The bar was dingy, but not too dingy. It had a simple layout of a circular bar, over which a platform for pole dancers stood. Booths lined the walls, and stairs led up to a second story opposite the main entrance. The back entrance was beneath the stairs, though for all she knew there was a warehouse through that door. The lights were dim, and the music was light.

Ginger she spotted immediately, pole-dancing on a platform above the bar. She hadn't changed at all, then. Jason was at the bar, likely serving drinks and dust. Shepard felt like she was going to be ill. It was like she'd stepped back a decade in time just walking through the door. She kept her head down, hoping no one would notice her, but it was early and the real crowds wouldn't start until later.

Jason had been cleaning glasses when she'd walked in, but when he saw her he stopped and stared, and looked like he was trying to place who she was. She had almost reached the back of the club to head to the VIP quarters, where Curt might be, when he placed her.

"Holy shit, Shepard?" _Ass_.

Shepard stopped and turned, giving him a guilty smile and a shrug, intent to continue on, but he abandoned his post at the bar and barreled straight to her. "Son of a bitch, it is you," He grinned toothily; several of his teeth were capped in gold. "There've been so many stories…."

"There'll be so many more," She started to say when he grabbed her and pulled her into a rough hug.

"You gotta tell me which are true," He insisted as he released her, "You gotta tell everyone. Shit, I can't believe you're back, but hell, once a Red, always a Red, right?"

Shepard swallowed the lump in her throat, "Right. Look, Jason, I need to see Curt."

"Curt?" Jason looked affronted, like he'd assumed she was there to see him and him alone, but that was Jason. People never changed. _You'll never change_. "You just missed him. He jumped station in a hurry, won't be back for a while. I've got so much to tell you." He dragged her, unwillingly, towards the bar, where a loud squeal from above informed her Ginger had finally recognized her.

"Rosy!" Ginger squeaked, scrambling off her platform without bothering to take the stairs. _Double ass_.

"Hey we got customers!" Jason protested.

Ginger raised an eyebrow, "Oh yeah, where?" Jason's mouth opened and closed, when Ginger threw herself on Shepard in a hug. "I knew the rumors weren't true, I sa-"

"Guys," Shepard pried Ginger and all her limbs off her, "It's good to see you, but is there a second-in-charge I can talk to?"

"Yeah, sure," Jason steered her towards the back of the club she'd been heading to in the first place, shooting Ginger a 'get back to work' look. "Curt's second's this new guy Everest. We've been bringing in all kinds of new people, doing all kinds of new stuff. Things have changed so much since you left, I don't even know where to start." He rubbed the back of his neck – _had she gotten that from him?_ – as they walked up the stairs together. "Oh yeah, you wanted to see Curt. So you know those turian-raptor-freaks right? Well he's got this huge-"

"Jason!" A man with slicked back hair in a pressed suit snarled as he emerged from the room they'd been heading towards on the second story. Shepard didn't recognize him, so she assumed he was Everest. "Do you ever shut the fuck up?"

"Relax, Ev, it's cool. Shep's a born Red." Shepard found herself wondering how Jason had survived so long. He was naïve and had a mouth that should have gotten him killed by now. She guessed his position as a bartender made him the Red's go-to-guy for gossip, and it was just his place to fill everyone in.

"Shep? As in Shepard? As in Commander Shepard?" Everest eyebrows drew closer together every time he rephrased her name.

"As in our Shepard." Jason threw his arm around her for emphasis. She wormed out from under it, trying to ignore the voice in her head. _As in the Shepard who might have to kill you_.

"As in the Shepard Curt wanted dead, you moron." Everest snapped his fingers and two bodyguards emerged from the room he'd been in. They had enough muscle she doubted they'd seen their own necks recently, and Shepard mentally dubbed them mini-hulks.

"Curt had bad intel," Shepard cut in, "He saw me with a turian and should have assumed I was going to kill him."

"Why should I believe you?" Everest pretended to pick lint off his suit. Shepard was relieved she'd guessed right. The Reds only wanted her dead because they thought she wasn't one of them anymore.

"Because I've been a Red longer than you and your nonecks, and I know how this works." The men in question bristled at the insult, "You need people in places and places for people, and being an Alliance Commander means I can get you both."

"We don't need the Alliance getting in our way."

"And I don't need the Reds getting in mine," _Quick lie, quick lie_… "That turian was going to give me secure frequencies for the Hierarchy, actually give us a chance at getting the bastards back for the First Contact War. Instead, he gave Terra Libera a push out this station's airlock."

"I knew it!" Jason punched the air, "I knew you were with those Alliance types to get back at those alien ass-"

"Jason, don't you have a bar to tend?" Everest glared. Jason shrunk in on himself, cast her an apologetic look, and slinked back downstairs.

Everest eyed her up and down, and finally tilted his head towards his office. Shepard held in a breath of relief. A lot of things might be beyond her, but bullshit? She was good at bullshit. The minihulks hulked away, and she took a seat across the desk in his office.

"So what do you want?" He steepled his fingers together and eyed her suspiciously.

Shepard put her elbows on her knees and leaned forward. "I want to know why the Reds and the Alliance are after the same turian."

"We weren't after him," Everest explained. "Terra Libera was. And they wanted him bad, because they gave us a nice gift for the tip. You wanted to see Curt? He'll be busy for a while… unwrapping it."

"Why were they after him?" She pressed. She might have seemed too eager. She might have seemed too concerned, because Everest didn't answer right away. And she might never know, because the roar of _someone's_ gunfire sounded below them.

That son of a bitch.


	16. Blueshift

Blueshift

Twenty minutes.

Nihlus was rarely, if ever, conflicted. He followed his instincts and did what he knew what best, and while it may have left his superiors unhappy, he was usually right.

But crouched in the catwalks outside Club Redshift, Nihlus was most certainly not following his instincts. His instincts had told him he should march down to the club, find Curt Weisman, and demand to know everything he knew about Terra Libera and the attack. Then hack their database, find out what Weisman hadn't told him, and report the group to the local authorities for good measure. That was what his instincts told him to do. But his human had told him not to.

Nineteen minutes.

Which shouldn't have mattered, but it did. He shouldn't have cared, but he did. He'd been set to lock her in the bathroom and bar the door with her cot (at least it would be good for something) when he'd seen her crestfallen face.

Nihlus shifted, resting his sniper against the railing. _You keep your personal life personal, or things get complicated_. He'd let it get personal, which meant it got complicated.

Eighteen minutes.

At least this proved that, however he tried to deny it, this was most certainly not a one-night stand. And however much it bothered him, he felt comfortable with her. More than comfortable. Which was unfortunate, since her old gang could choose any of the twenty minutes he spent doing nothing to turn on her.

Seventeen minutes.

Saren had once told him about a mission on Camela. The Council had ordered him to work with a human, and the human had let his personal feelings get in the way. An eezo refinery had held both their objectives, and the human's mate. The human had gone after his mate, and the entire refinery had been destroyed as a result.

"_All for a woman?" Nihlus had scoffed in disbelief._

"_What more can you expect, from a human?" Saren raised his hand for another drink, and a waitress sauntered over. It was the first time Nihlus had ever been to Palaven, and Saren had decided to treat him to drinks for it. _

"_He shouldn't have let his emotions get in the way," Nihlus continued, ignoring the pointed racism in Saren's rhetorical. "One life for a thousand is a small price to pay." He finished his drink and eyed the waitress. Something seemed off about her…_

"_That's the math," Saren nodded, swirling his drink, "I'm glad you can do it." He glanced over his shoulder at the waitress and twitched his head. Her eyes lit up and she nodded, vanishing into the backroom and remerging in casual clothes. "Head back to the room and don't wait up. We'll meet with the Cabal team in the morning." _

_Nihlus had ended up following his instincts, which told him to follow Saren. When Saren and his date were ambushed, he hadn't regretted doing so. The fight ended with Saren explaining he knew about the ambush, and had been tailing the waitress who was a member of an Anti-Council terrorist group. It was the first, and so far only, time he'd regretted following his instincts. _

"_I told you to go back to the room." Saren ended his lecture with. Nihlus felt curiously light-headed, and he finally realized why the waitress had seemed off. Saren hadn't had any of the drinks she'd brought them. "You have good instincts little brother," Saren noted, as Nihlus's vision went hazy. "I'm glad you trust them." He caught Nihlus just as he was about to pass out from whatever drug he'd been slipped. "But before your instincts, you need to trust me." _

Sixteen minutes.

Trust the human and his emotions, and wait out the next fifteen minutes. Trust his instincts and his training, and go in now. In all likelihood, he'd just end up arguing with himself until time made the decision for him. He wasn't even aware he was growling until someone commented on it beneath him.

"You hear something?" The voice -male, human - asked his companion.

"I hear you bitching," Snapped the second voice. "What is it this time?" Nihlus took stock of the situation. Two men with hair dyed a garish red were dragging a body between them towards the club. It must have been a light load, female, from the time they were making.

"Just thought- nevermind." He shook his head and shifted the weight of the woman. She was covered in scarves and wraps, all a cheerful yellow. Her head lulled and a muffled groan reached him.

"Keelah…" She was a quarian.

"Oh look, our gypsy princess is awake." The second man chuckled.

First panicked, "She wasn't supposed to wake up until we got back to the club,"

"Who cares?" He shrugged, "Everest won't mind if she's a little used." The quarian finally regained consciousness, and shoved away from both men. She stumbled forward a few feet, clutching her head with one hand and supporting herself against the wall with the other.

"You're sick," The first man shook his head, but made no move to intervene. "She's an alien."

Fifteen minutes.

"Where am I?" The quarian muttered, turning to press her back protectively against the wall. "Who are you?"

"I'm Ken," The second man announced with nonchalant cheer, "This is Dan," He waved at his comrade. "And you, are in for a treat."

"I'm not in for anything." The woman snapped. Nihlus knew all quarians had six months of training before leaving for their pilgrimage, so in theory, she should have been able to take care of herself. Should have been able to stop what turians considered the worst crime any sentient being could commit. "I'm leaving, get out of my way." In theory.

"What, no kiss goodbye?" Ken snorted, blocking her path away from the club's back entrance. The woman made an effort to shove past him, and he threw her back against the wall, reaching for the clasp to her mask. "Come on, just one."

"Bosh'tet," The quarian smacked his hand away, "I take my mask off and I could die. Now leave me alone, play games with someone else."

Nihlus had his sniper rifle trained on the back of the human's head. It would have been an easy kill, but his talon hovered over the trigger. They were his human's old gang, his human's old friends…

Ken laughed, oblivious to the large, armored turian on the catwalks, and made another move for the quarian. "That's what happens when you live your life inside a condom, sweetheart," A glint of silver flashed as he drew a knife from the back of his belt. "You get screwed."

And they weren't worth saving.

Fourteen minutes.

His shot blew the human's head from his shoulders and splattered the quarian with blood and bone. She screamed, and ran in the opposite direction with her hands covering her head. The other human dove for the club, bellowing warnings to his gang, and firing blindly with his sidearm into the hallway.

Times up.


	17. Implosion

Implosion

Shepard went immediately from plan A to plan M. Which, as any highly trained N7 marine knew, stood for 'Making it up on the go.'

"What the hell is that?" Everest shot up to the sound of gunfire and Shepard followed suit.

"How should I know?" She lied, but he saw right through it.

"Like hell!" He scrambled with a key to a drawer in his desk. "You led the Alliance or that turian right to us!" Shepard grabbed the gun in the back of her pants and leapt across the desk. Everest fell back into his chair, thankfully not too far away. She reared her hand back and pistol whipped him across the face. He slouched unconscious with a welt rising on the side of his forehead.

"Son of a bitch." Shepard muttered, shoving him out of her way and rifling through the desk drawers. She found a few OSDs and quickly pocketed them. Her mind was still partly stuck in the past, back when she used to be a Red. She knew the drill. When you were raided, by the cops or another gang, speed was all that mattered. Every man for himself, get your shit and get out. Except now she was the one doing the raiding. Shepard started scrolling madly through a datapad, trying to find anything relevant before the fighting downstairs got even more out of hand.

"Sir!" Screamed one of the minihulks, smashing open the door, "We're under atta-" His words caught in his throat as his eyes took stock of the situation. His employer was slumped in his chair, the woman he'd been with standing in front of his unconscious body going through his things. He reached for his gun, but Shepard was faster, and put three bullets through his head before he drew it.

His body curled in on itself and collapsed in the doorway, all but a flashing sign that screamed for reinforcements.

"Son of a bitch." Shepard snarled again. She scrambled around the desk and made to step over the body blocking the door when the second minihulk appeared. He took one look at her and drew up a pistol. Shepard dove back into the room just as his gun blasted a hole in the doorframe where her head used to be.

Scrambling through her pockets, Shepard grabbed a flash grenade and flung it out the door. The blast went off and she rolled over the body and out the door. The bodyguard had staggered backwards, blind, and was rubbing furiously at his eyes. Shepard rolled forward and struck his arm, then kneed him between the legs. His gun clattered to the floor and he doubled forward. Shepard smashed her knee forward into his chin, and he smashed his head back against the wall, then slumped forward.

His head lulled at an unnaturally angle; she'd inadvertently struck him hard enough for it to be fatal. Shepard pushed herself upright and ran a hand through her hair. A highly trained N7 marine was no match for a Red.

"Son of a bitch…" Shepard jogged back to the stairs to the first floor; another Red shoved passed her and ran down to help the gang without a backwards glance. A human with red hair, and they trusted her without a second thought. Shepard felt another lump gathering in her throat.

She reached the stairs to see Jason taking cover beneath the bar. He awkwardly clutched an assault rifle, making it clear he'd never used it before. He darted up to fire towards the back entrance, and took a sniper round to the head, making sure he'd never use it again.

Shepard flinched, glanced away, then forced herself to look again. She could see everything from the top of the stairwell, except the back entrance directly beneath her. Not that she needed to, she could visualize the turian well enough.

The downstairs was a mess, Reds were scattered throughout the bar, turning tables and booths into cover. Blood and bullet holes littered the walls, ash and char littered the floor. The bouncer who'd nodded to her at the front door had taken cover in the booth nearest the entrance. He clutched a grenade tightly in his hand, mouthed something that seem like a prayer, and stood up to throw it. A gunshot took him in the chest, but not before he flung the grenade and it went off directly beneath her.

The blast sent shrapnel and construction material flying up and staggered her off her feet. She collapsed to the floor and smashed her chin painfully on the ground. She'd guessed right, she knew now that she'd gotten a good look. It had been Jimmy. He'd always prayed when he fought. Blood pooled in her mouth, and sprayed across the floor when she spat. "Son of a bitch."

_ "You leaving?" She'd accidently run into Jason. He'd been standing outside the hideout, his eyes bloodshot from dusting, a whirl of biotic energy twisting around hand. It flickered and died when he saw her._

_ "Yeah, I'm leaving." She glanced at him then looked back out at the street. It was never hard to find a car to jack. She'd be out of the city and in Basic Training by morning. Somewhere far away. Macapa had been at the top of the list on their site, searching for new recruits._

_ "Where you going?" He sent her hair floating with his pseudobiotics. She smacked at the air, not that it would help. She hadn't wanted to run into anyone, it's why she was leaving in the middle of the night. _

_ "Alliance." Shepard shrugged. _

_ "Gonna kill some aliens?" He chuckled, his face looked haggard. He really needed to stop dusting._

_ "Yeah, gonna kill some aliens." She would have said anything to get out of here as fast as possible._

_ "Shep-" He took a step towards her. She took a step back._

_ "Come on, Jason, don't do this." She'd already paid for a forged ID. Her eighteenth 'birthday' would come the same day she reached Macapa, if she was lucky. She wondered, not for the first time, how old she really was._

_ "Don't do what? Don't ask you to stay?" He looked like he wanted to cry. Sandblasting always made him emotional. "The Reds are family."_

_ Shepard looked away, "Not my family."_

_ "… You ever coming back?" She shrugged. His mood swung to cheerful; she wondered if he'd remember their conversation in the morning. She hoped not. "… you musta forged an ID if you wanna join the jarheads," He smiled, "What'd you put your name as?"_

_ "Shepard." It was her position in the Reds. She herded in the marks, all the dumb sheep they cornered in the alleys, and their credits along with them. _

_ "First name?" He pressed._

_ She shook her head, "The Reds aren't gonna find me, Jason."_

_ "We're still gonna try. You're family."_

Shepard shook herself. Jason was dead, his fingers turning blue and stiff over his gun, his blood dripping with liquor from broken bottles behind the bar. The rest of the Reds were dead or dying. So much for family. Snatching a flash grenade from her pocket, she flung it directly beneath it and hoped it went off in the turian's face.

Stumbling backwards, Shepard ran back into the second story hallway and smacked into another person. The terrified shriek told her who it was.

"Oh my god, oh my god!" Ginger screamed, clinging to her like a vice. "Rosy what's going on! I don't know what's going on! Oh god-Jason-oh god-" She choked on her own words and derailed into a babbling, sobbing mess. Tears streamed from her eyes, smearing her mascara and merging with the snot that poured from her nose.

"Ginger, calm down," Shepard pried her off, Ginger's nails leaving angry red marks in her back. She took her by her shoulders and tried to look her in her eyes. Her tears had matted her eyelashes together and left her nearly blind. "It's the turian, Jason must have told you. I need to know why Terra Libera wanted him dead. Do you understand?"

"-I don't know I don't know-" Ginger sobbed, trying to claw her way back into a hug. "Curt would kno-ho-how. I don't know-"

"Ginger, calm down!" Shepard shook her by her shoulders, wondering if she should slap her. "You remember that raid, back when we were kids, you showed me the vents you used and we hid from the cops?"

Ginger hiccupped and nodded, then didn't stop nodding, "I remember, I remember."

"I need you to show me where Curt would keep his data, somewhere not in his office," She added, least Ginger lead her back to two, potentially three, dead bodies. "Then we'll hide, just like before, okay? Can you do that?"

"I can do that." She nodded, wiping a hand across her face and smearing her make-up. "I can do that." Ginger grabbed her hand and all but dragged her back into the second story. She took a few odd turns, and then led them into what looked like a sitting room. She went straight to a holo decorating the wall, and pressed a few hidden buttons. The holo vanished, and a door slid open to reveal a safe. A few terminals lined the walls, odd machines for forgery of credit chits or identicards were all that the room held.

"Here," Ginger wrung her hands together. She was still in her dancing outfit. "Maybe we c-can close it from the inside or-or something." Ginger hovered anxiously around the door, trying to figure out a way to lock them both in. Shepard didn't bother to tell her there wasn't one. It was a safe, not a panic room.

Instead she went to the first terminal and typed in a quick search for Terra Libera, and started a file-transfer to her omnitool as she did so. "Do you know who wanted to kill him, Ginger? Who hired Terra Libera?"

"How does that help us!" Ginger all but screamed. "How does that help!"

"Ginger!" Shepard barked in her best DI voice.

It worked. Ginger blanched and started stammering. "I don't know, Jason said something about a ship, it came from a ship."

"That doesn't make sense." Shepard muttered, focusing back on the terminal. The transactions between Terra Libera and the Reds only confirmed what Ginger had said. The original call was gone, but the signal had been traced to reveal it hadn't accessed a comm buoy.

"Why not?" Ginger was starting to cry again. "I don't understand." _Because the only ships close enough that wouldn't need to use a comm buoy are Alliance_. Shepard thought, but didn't say. There had to be another explanation.

She opened another file: the most recent intel Terra Libera had sent the Reds. She guessed it was what Everest had been revering to when he'd mentioned the 'gift' Curt was 'unwrapping.' What she saw made her stomach flop and her hands shake. She felt like she was going to be sick.

Ginger had curled up in a ball in a corner, sobbing, "We're going to die," over and over again.

Shepard shook herself. She copied the data to her omnitool, and then to a blank OSD, when Ginger's scream make her spin around and point her gun at the entrance to the safe.

The turian stood leaning against the doorframe, clutching a hand to his side. A weak spot in his armor had been ruptured, and blue blood stained his hand and poured between his talons. Shepard's arm shook. Face to face with him, her first thought was that the injury had to be her fault, from the flash grenade she'd thrown in a fit of rage, seeing her past laid dead and bare before her.

"What did you find?" He coughed, a trickle of blood ran between his fangs and along his mouth beneath his mandible. He went straight to the terminal, ignoring Ginger screaming in the corner, whose screams stopped short at his words.

"…What-What…." She glanced between the two of them, her eyes wide with disbelief. "What do you mean?" She looked from him to Shepard, disbelief shifting into rage. "What does he mean?"

He took stock of the intel Terra Libera had given the Reds, and he went almost violently rigid. He shot her a look that caused her as much pain as his injury must have caused him. It was condemning, livid, the look you gave an enemy. "I have to warn the Hierarchy." He mumbled to himself. Warn them of what Curt and the Reds planned to do.

What they planned to do. Not her. _Not me_. Shepard wanted to tell him.

She wanted to say anything that would make her forget that look, make her forget the bodies of her past downstairs. Make her forget all the friends he'd killed, make him understand she didn't have or want anything to do with Curt's plan.

"What does he mean!" Ginger screamed again. She seemed to be the only one in the room able to speak. "You're with him aren't you!" Her lips curled back in disgust. "Oh god-they were right-" She scrambled to her feet, and was about to run from the room when Shepard grabbed her by her forearm.

"You can't leave Gingi." Shepard mumbled, staring at the floor and tightening her grip on her old friend's arm. "There were civilians here. I can't let you tell anyone. You know what the Alliance would do to me. Only a Spectre could get away with this."

"I-what. No. What do you mean? Shepard what do you mean!" Shepard didn't say anything. Ginger was sobbing the words out. "I won't tell anyone. Rosy-Shepard, I won't tell anyone. You remember when you first killed for the Reds, and then you threw up? I held your hair back!" She was clawing at Shepard's arm, trying to get loose. It didn't work. "I didn't tell anyone! You remember don't you!"

"I remember." Shepard pressed her gun against Ginger's heart and fired. She went limp in her grasp, her eyes wide with shock. Shepard eased her gently to the floor and sat holding the gun in her hands. She turned it over and over idly, her mind blank, when her turian spoke.

"… Your name's Shepard?"

"I don't have a name." Shepard whispered, reaching out to gently close Ginger's eyes. He took a step towards her, and she shook her head without looking at him. "You got what you came for. Go," He stopped. The silence, the sheer stillness of it all, painfully informed her that they were dead. They were all dead, and she'd known them. She'd known all of them. "Please just go…"


	18. Illumination

Illumination

Curt Weisman Personal Log / Emergency Override Accepted: 'Reds Bleed Red'

Personal Correspondence / Location: Error REDACTED / #3451

"Thanks for the tip on that turian. As a little token of our appreciation, we thought we'd pass a job your way. No catch, just something for another group in our area of expertise, if you catch my meaning.

We've been expanding, and right now we don't have the inclination to focus our attention elsewhere. Offer still stands if you want to join us. In the meantime, I'm glad this little arrangement has been to our mutual advantage.

Terra Libera

Att. Security overrides for Sacred Medical Transport 23. Current Location: Citadel. EnRoute: Parthia."

Nihlus's eyes glazed over the screen. A medical transport on route to Parthia: a turian colony of millions. He could guess what an anti-alien extremist group like the Reds had planned. He shot Tequila a glare, livid with rage. There were no other Reds left alive to blame. "I have to warn the Hierarchy." He muttered, turning his attention back to the terminal.

He copied the information to his omnitool, and was in the midst of typing out a quick message to forward to the Council with the intel, when something the other human screamed caught his notice. _Shepard_.

Nihlus was sure he hadn't heard right. Trauma and blood loss were making him hallucinate. He stood clutching the gunshot wound in his side, staring in disbelief at the human- his human, on the floor.

"Your name's Shepard?" His human couldn't possibly be the same human he'd be mentoring. Shepard couldn't possibly be the human a part of the gang to blame for the planned atrocity against his people.

"I don't have a name." She mumbled from the ground, trailing her fingers to shut the eyes of the human she'd killed. "You got what you came for," She whispered viciously, with all the condemnation he'd directed at her just moments ago. "Go."

He hardly heard her. He wanted to take her by the shoulders, turn her around, and demand an answer, any other answer. Shepard couldn't possibly be the same human he…

"Please just go." She hissed.

"Commander Shepard?" He specified. The way she went rigid assured him he hadn't been imaging anything. "The soon-to-be XO of the SSV Normandy? With medals for Distinguished Combat and Valor? Commendations from-" He would have continued if she hadn't stood and spun in a single fluid motion.

"Who the shit-" She snarled.

"Nihlus Kyrik, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance." He was about to extend his free hand for her to shake when his mind caught up with him and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. He scratched the back of his neck with his hand instead. "I'm the Spectre overseeing the Normandy's shakedown run."

She stared at him in silence for several minutes, her expression going through all the emotions he'd experienced had just moments ago before settling on disbelief. "Bullshit."

"It's not," He wanted to sit down and apply medigel to his injury, but some irrational part of his mind insisted that if he paused, she'd walk out of his life forever, not Commander Shepard, but just some cruel joke he'd only know by her favorite drink. "Your profile was corrupted, the database was under reconstruction. I never got a picture."

Shepard seemed to be debating the odds of his words being true, which in her defense, weren't at all in his favor. In the end she decided not to decide, "I don't need this." She muttered, moving to walk past him.

In his haste, he reached out and grabbed her forearm with the wrong hand, smearing blue blood along her spacer-pale skin. "Shepard-"

She looked down at his hand on her arm, the sapphire droplets running down her skin. On her other arm was blood from her friend, familiar rubies leaving trails of familiar blood. "Do you need any more help with your investigation, Spectre?" She asked in a dull monotone, sealing the divide between them. The difference had never been clearer.

Nihlus released her to put pressure on his wound again. "No… Thank you Commander."

She gave a light nod and moved past him, trailing out of the club like a ghost of one of the several Reds he'd killed. She didn't look back once.

Nihlus slumped to the ground, exhausted in more ways than one. He signed the forwarded intel on his omnitool, encrypted it, and sent the message off to the Council. He made a mental note to contact them and assure himself the tainted medical supplies had been intercepted before reaching Parthia.

In the mean time, he had to treat his injury. Nihlus eased himself out of his upper armor, and retrieved a packet of medigel from his utility belt. He checked the wound for any residual shrapnel, saw none, and applied the technically illegal salve. It violated genetic modification laws, but once the Council saw its utility, the red tape was cut, and the rules were ignored. Much like the Spectres.

Nihlus pulled himself out of his musings, which he preferred to focus on over physical and other pain. He had no analgesics on him, apart from the stim packs directly interfaced to his hardsuit. It was unwise and generally unadvisable to use stims for painkillers, due to the crash that came when they wore out.

Working himself back into his armor, he activated a stim pack, and felt instant relief and clarity flood through his system. It wasn't as if he had anything to do later but sleep, in any case. Picking himself up off the floor, Nihlus checked the terminal for anything he'd missed from Weisman's logs, made a back-up OSD, and finally sent an update to station security.

Satisfied he wouldn't find any further useful intel, he made his way out of Club Redshift, and realized he'd have to go back to Teq-Shepard's apartment to get his personal terminal. Straightening his shoulders, expecting the worst when he arrived, he took the quickest route there and was greeted with the same receptionist who'd been there when they left.

She recognized him and smiled pleasantly, not at all like the man who'd been running the nightshift. With an absent-minded nod, she went back to reading the datapad in her hand. Nihlus nodded back, trying to ignore the irony of being accepted once he was never coming back.

_Don't think about it._

When he found his way back to her room, he buzzed the intercom and waited, not really expecting a reply. After his third attempt, he bypassed the lock and found she wasn't ignoring him; she just wasn't there.

_Don't worry about it_.

Retrieving his terminal, he wondered if he should leave a note, then decided against it. He opened his omnitool and checked his latest messages, searching for one from station security.

He located the one he was looking for as he left the hotel. He'd been transferred to a suite, twice the size of his old apartment, with no charge for either. And Shepard barely managed a single room.

_It doesn't matter_.

He ran on autopilot to reach his new room. He was dimly aware he greeted and had an entire conversation with the receptionist of his new hotel, though would have been hard pressed to recall anything either of them had said. His suite had an entry way complete with a closet for visitors to place shoes and coats. His living room had a backdrop view of earth, and several couches arranged around a vid screen.

The kitchen was divided from the living room by a counter, similar to his old room, except it merged into a hallway that doubtless led to the bed and restrooms.

His mind instantly conjured up an image of Shepard's apartment and began mental geometry to imagine how many of her rooms could fit inside his one. The suite suddenly seemed grossly extravagant, almost tacky.

A room was a room. He pushed aside his sudden distaste for his lodging and set up his terminal on the coffee table of his living room. He started up an encryption, accessed Earth's secure comm buoy, and contacted the Council. Only when he was on hold, waiting for the three to access their separate holo-displays, did he realize he looked a battle-worn mess.

"Agent Nihlus," Councilor Tevos began, a carefully controlled amount of surprise in her soothing voice, "We weren't expecting your call, and certainly not so soon."

"Apologies, Councilors, " He tilted his head, "But the matter seemed urgent."

"Naturally, we understand your concern," Her voice was still soothing, no coated distress or tight-lipped grief. He hadn't been too late, then. "The information was sent to the Hierarchy almost as soon as it was received; the transport will be intercepted before it reaches Parthia. Sacred Medical was notified and cautioned, and they've already begun drafting revised security protocols to ensure this kind of breach doesn't happen again."

"These groups, 'Terra Libera' and 'Reds," Councilor Valern cut in as soon as Tevos finished, "We've never heard of them, they're human?"

"Terrorist extremists, minor, independent from the Alliance." He wasn't aware of how defensive he sounded until the salarian Councilor spoke up.

"Of course, Operative Kyrik," Nihlus still couldn't remember his name, "It was not our intent to insinuate the Alliance's involvement in any way." Valern looked like he disagreed, but held his tongue regardless.

"You saved millions of lives today," Valern said instead, "The colony of Parthia is in your debt."

"Keep up the good work." Tevos added, and the call terminated.

Nihlus blinked away the residual images of the three Councilors hovering in his living room. Determined to make the most of his time before the stims wore off, he opened his omnitool and reviewed the signal trace for whoever had hired Terra Libera.

Either the Reds had run the trace themselves, or they'd received it from Terra Libera after the mercenaries had purged the data. Whatever the case may have been, the signal was cleaner than should have been possible. It looked as if it had been a direct line from the caller to the L5 station, which meant whoever had hired them would had to have been close enough to be able to send the signal without the use of a comm buoy.

His initial assumption was the Alliance, but the coding didn't match any Alliance signatures. No Alliance frequencies, codes, or encryption. Nothing marked it as a transmission from Earth, either. It was as if the signal sent itself, or had come from someone or something that couldn't be traced. Some new technology that didn't require comm buoys or leave data trails, but that was something beyond the Terminus Systems, or any systems as far as Nihlus knew.

There had to have been something he'd missed. Something that would make the pieces fit together, but he'd exhausted all his clues. He doubted he'd ever find his answer until he set foot on Eden Prime and retrieved the beacon himself, and maybe not even then.

Nihlus sighed heavily and felt every part of his body ache in protest. Wincing, he began slowly disassembling his armor, feeling the stims begin to wear off and his mind begin to wander. His first thoughts were of how much easier it would be to take his armor off with human hands to help him. Then just of hands, pale with no talons and too many fingers.

It was then he realized his own hands itched, likely from a mild allergic reaction to running over soft skin for an hour, in a warm shower with warm feelings…

Nihlus shook himself out of his memories. There was no point in dwelling on anything. Dragging his battered form to the restroom, which took him two wrong doors to find, he took a cold shower and rested his forehead against the tile.

He should have felt accomplished. In the very least, content. He'd eliminated two terrorist groups, saved a colony, and found out everything he could have hoped to learn about Commander Shepard. _Like how she had a scar twisting along her left ribs and down her side.._. and how his relationship with her would be _strictly professional_ from now on.

Nihlus banged his head lightly against the shower wall to clear his thoughts. He made it to his bed, a lavish thing with smooth sheets that wouldn't catch on his spurs, a supportive mattress, and plenty of pillows to hold up his head. He muttered 'lights' and the room went dark.

He lay in the dark for an immeasurable amount of time, before he finally retrieved his omnitool and threw himself back into bed. Technically, he had no reason to recheck Commander Shepard's files. But he had no photo, and he wanted to see her again before they met on the Normandy.

He should have felt something. Something for everything he'd achieved, but it was just another mission. Another job.

Nihlus force-quit his omnitool. Her profile picture didn't look like her at all.

Another bad day.


	19. Radioactive

Radioactive

That son of a bitch.

Shepard wandered idly away from the base. Her shirt was covered in Gingi's blood, and not for the first time she was glad her civvies were black. She couldn't hide the cut on her lip, or the smears on her arms, but she didn't have to wander the L5 station tie-dyed in blood.

She'd made it halfway to her apartment when she remembered she'd only pistol whipped Everest, and he'd be unconscious, not dead. Pulling her gun back out of the back of her cargo pants, she jogged back to Redshift. On the way there she remembered whose gun it was and almost dropped it in disgust. Shepard shook herself. A gun was a gun was a gun. At least she didn't have to buy a new one yet.

Walking back through the club was like walking through a childhood nightmare. Bodies with familiar faces were twisted at unnatural angles, stewing in their own blood. Broken glass on a bloody floor, the musk of alcohol and death poignant in the air, she tried to ignore all of it. Her boots crunched glass and sloshed through blood, all of it little more than white noise and a mundane backdrop until she saw Jason's body.

He had a single round through the head, his hands wrapped tightly around his gun, the thermal clip a blazing red. It had likely overheated, Jason had no military training to teach him how to pace his firing, and he'd kept trying to fire anyway. His palms were a gruesome black, charred and melted to a weapon he didn't even know how to use.

That son of a bitch.

Sprinting up the stairs, away from the nightmare, Shepard stormed to Everest's office, leaping over the body in the doorway with her pistol drawn. She was ready for a fight, ready to take him out while he was still unconscious. She was ready for anything, except for the nothing she encountered. Everest was gone.

"Ass," Shepard muttered to herself, stowing her pistol in the back of her pants and running from the room. Where would he have gone? She ran a hand through her hair and paced as she thought. Standard Red procedure when the base was raided was every man for himself. He could have gone to any other hideout on the station, Reds, Terra Libera, Terra Firma…

Unless he thought they were hitting all the bases on the station. They'd already taken out Terra Libera, attacked a patrol outside OmniTonic, and wrecked Redshift. By that same argument, he might try to warn the other hideouts, but every man for himself meant just that. He'd be trying to make it to the shuttles off station before security knew who he was.

_After all_, Shepard thought grimly as she ran for the shuttle bays, _it's what I would do_. She'd just made it out of the club when the floor lurched beneath her, and sent her flying through the air to crash on the ground some yards away. Groaning, Shepard pushed herself to her knees and glanced over her shoulder. Redshift was in flames, and belched another explosion, shattering the front window and sending glass spraying towards her. She barely had time to cover her head and bury her face in the floor.

That son of a bitch.

Shepard wasn't sure how the explosion was his fault, but she was completely prepared to blame it on him until she remembered Jason's thermal clip, burning red and hissing with heat while alcohol poured down the counter around it. It had likely set off the entire supply, in addition to whatever ordnance Jason and anyone else around him had had on them.

Shepard shoved herself up off the floor. The station's alarms went off, blaring and flashing warnings. All the advertisement holos lining the walls shifted to arrows, intent to direct crowds to safety. The flashing lights and blaring sirens almost gave her a headache, when, thoughtfully, the fire-safety went off and doused in her freezing foam. Again.

_Goddamnit_.

Jogging away from the club, smacking foam out of her hair and off her clothes, Shepard knew there was no way she was going be inconspicuous now, so instead, she settled on being fast. Shoving her way through the crowds, she received more than a few unflattering comments, but otherwise made it to the shuttle bay unimpeded. Which did little more than place her soaking, cold, and alone, in the center of a busy crowd. Vaulting atop a loading crate, she looked out over the crowd, trying to place Everest among them.

Seeing a man with slicked back hair who looked to be in a similar outfit, she leapt off the crate and pushed her way through the crowd. When she reached him she grabbed his shoulders and spun him around, smashing him into the public terminal behind him.

"My goodness what on earth!" The startled man, who turned out to be elderly and wearing a name tag for a research team, of all things, fell over himself and tried to scramble backwards up the terminal.

"Nothing, sorry." Shepard mumbled, releasing him and rubbing the back of her neck. He tripped and stumbled over his own feet in his haste to escape from the woman who'd assaulted him.

"You okay, lady?" A man in a shuttle security outfit who'd witnessed the entire episode blinked at her, voice accented by the gum that rolled about in his mouth.

"No, I'm looking for a man named Everest, he'd have passed through here recently."

He brought up a datapad and clicked through it for a moment before glancing up at her. "Last name?"

"I-… don't know."

"Oh, good," He smacked his lips at her. "You want me to find John Smith while I'm at it?"

Shepard was about to throw out a snappy retort about her fist finding his face when she noticed his eyes lingering over the blood smeared across her arms. "I should let you get back to work." She mumbled, backpedaling into the crowd. She heard him call after her and ignored it, blending into a group from one of the arriving shuttles.

She made it back to her hotel without incident, and might have made it all the way to her room if the receptionist hadn't called out to her. "Oh, Commander! Your friend came by earlier, I hope you don't mind I let him through. Whenever you stay here I never see you with any visitors so I thought…"

That son of a bitch.

"It's fine." Shepard didn't want to count the shore-leaves she'd stayed here, alone in her shoebox room sneering down at her old home and everyone around her. The same receptionist had been here each time, and Shepard didn't even know her name. _Names were funny like that_.

Her room was the same way it had been only _his_ terminal was missing. "And he probably won't even call," She joked to herself. The longer she thought about it, the more it stung. She made a mental note not to think about it, so of course, the only thing she could do was think about it.

The Reds were dead. At least almost all the ones she'd grown up with. Everest was still alive, on his way to who-knew-where. He could report her to the authorities, but that would mean explaining why a Spectre and a Commander of the Systems Alliance had attacked the club in the first place. More likely he'd go to wherever the Red's main base was, and try to get the gang to handle his revenge for him.

Maybe she'd see more old faces. More mangled, bloody faces with empty eyes and-

That son of a bitch.

Shepard shook herself and stripped out of her bloodied civvies, took a cold shower, and changed into a new pair of clothes. She threw herself down into the only chair in her room, and wondered if she should call Steven. What was she supposed to say?

'Sir, I should have no conflicts working with Nihlus Kyrik, given that I've already helped him with two unauthorized strikes on civilian targets in Alliance space.'

'Admiral Hackett, not only do I have no problem working with aliens, I have no problem sleeping with them.'

'I think I should see other Spectres.'

Shepard dropped her head to her desk with a groan. Maybe she should explain how her old gang affiliations were planning to poison a turian colony. That snapped her head up in a panic, and brought her hand half-way to her terminal before the familiar voice in her head calmed her down. _He'll handle it. He doesn't need your help_. He doesn't need anything except his damn terminal.

Shepard stood up and sat back down when she realized there was where else in her room to go. He hadn't even left a note. All she had was his name. _And whose fault is that_?

…name. Shepard dug through her pockets for the OSDs she'd taken from Curt's office, and started transferring their data to her personal terminal. She finally found what she was looking for after her third OSD- the Reds' information broker. She sent him a message for an urgent meeting at OmniTonic using Curt's encryption, snatched a new jacket, and left.

Clubs, to Shepard, always seemed empty when you were cruising and crowded when you weren't. As a testament to her observation, OmniTonic was packed. Or perhaps it was as crowded as usual, only now she paid more attention to the aliens.

She took a spot at the bar and had devoured two bowls of nuts before someone smacked her on the shoulder. "Hey, hey, what I tell you guys?" She turned to see a man with a Cheshire grin fall into the seat next to her. He had on a light brown coat, well dressed, but no obvious displays of wealth. "Your boy Johnny always comes through in a pinch." She doubted that was his real name, but then, despite the red hair he'd identified her by, she wasn't a real Red. "So what do you need, what do you need?" He threw a few nuts into his mouth and chewed noisily.

"I want you to look into Nihlus Kyrik," Shepard explained, pulling the bowl away from him, "He's a Spectre."

He held up his hands in protest as soon as the words left her mouth. "Hey, lady, I'm an information broker, not the Shadow Broker. Spectres are classified."

"I don't want any of his Spectre files; I want to know who he was before he was a Spectre."

"Oh, blackmail huh?" Was that what she wanted? Shepard wasn't even sure. She just wanted to know something more than his name. "Yeah, yeah, I should be able to hook you up with something… When do you need it by?"

"How soon can you have it?"

"Soon," He tapped his fingers along the counter thoughtfully, "Real soon. But uh, I gotta charge extra for a rush job."

"That's not a problem." She may as well do something with the credits she'd stolen from Terra Firma, if she wasn't giving Nihlus back his gun. She thought mournfully on her lost chit, but thankfully it hadn't had that much on it.

She must have answered too quickly; his eyes light up with the prospect of milking a novice. "And uh… come to think of it, I gotta add a fee for-"

Shepard grabbed him by his collar and yanked him roughly forward. "I don't have time for you to start jerking me around." She growled, and released him with a shove.

"Hey! Easy on the merchandise!" He straightened out his collar and brushed imaginary dust off his sleeves. "I don't want any trouble."

"Do your job and you won't find any."

"Hey, hey," He smiled his unnaturally wide smile, "I don't play, you don't pay. I'll prolly have what you need in a few hours, give or take," He pulled a datapad out of his coat and typed in a number, then slid it across the counter for her to see. "Half now, half later." Shepard nodded, 'Johnny' left.

Shepard was debating staying and get shitfaced when the bartender slid her a drink. "On the house, compliments of the gentleman over there." He announced, gesturing to a group at a booth across the room. The man who'd sent it raised his drink to invite her over. Shepard got up and left.

She spent the next several hours in her room, writing reports to station security and the Alliance. She found evidence of the customs' agent supplying Terra Libera and forwarded it along, made her reports as clean and brief as possible for the mercenary base and Redshift, and topped it all off with every shred of incriminating evidence Terra Libera and Curt Weisman had had on themselves, each other, and other agents scattered through the station and Alliance space.

She wrote a final report on 'Johnny' and how to contact him, then waited until he'd sent her the information on Nihlus to send it off to station security. The small vindictive act helped calm her down as she transferred the intel to a datapad and threw herself down on her cot.

Shepard stared through the luminescent screen rather than at it, seeing none of the words. She tapped it against her knee, aggravated by her own hesitation. _What do you think you'll find? Blackmail? He's a Spectre. His job is worse than his past. Something to help you understand him? You know firsthand how inaccurate reports are for judging character. _

No, she wanted something that would make it okay for her to hate him for what he did to the Reds, but she knew without looking there wasn't anything. She shouldn't have tried diplomacy in the first place. He was right; they weren't worth saving

_And that's what upsets you, isn't it? Because you're just like them, but you get to live and they don't_.

Shepard threw the datapad against the wall. It bounced off and slid across the floor, before ending up under her desk. She just needed to forget about everything. The Reds, her prejudice, the turian colony, _her turian_. She grabbed her jacket and shrugged it on, intent to go out, get plastered, and find a stranger to blow off steam with before her shoreleave was over. _That's what got you into this mess in the first place_, the voice in her head reminded her. She ignored it.

Shepard swiped her hand over the holo her door and it slid open to reveal brilliant green eyes and a crimson face painted over in ivory markings. Her unexpected guest was dressed in casual red and black civvies, unarmed and unarmored save for a brown paper bag in his left hand.

"Hey," Nihlus offered awkwardly after a moment, holding up the bag as a shield, or peace offering, or both. "I brought tequila."


	20. Luminosity

Luminosity

Nihlus was willing to admit this may not have been a bright idea. Another round of stims had made him cocksure of himself when he'd left his apartment. While they kept him wide awake, he still felt drained and exhausted. If he shouldn't be operating heavy machinery, he doubted he should be attempting to rekindle a relationsomething.

When the door didn't close in his face, he decided his judgment couldn't be too heavily impaired. Shepard didn't say anything in response to his greeting, and continued to fix him with a crimson glare.

"I thought we could talk." He offered after another round of awkward silence.

"What about?" She folded her arms across her chest, a defensive posture in any culture.

_The first flaw in improvising was that you were improvising_. "A lot of things," He shook the tequila enticingly. She eyed it for a minute, and then finally stepped aside. Nihlus decided her alcoholism wasn't such a bad thing after all.

"Have a seat, if you can find one." She joked humorlessly, and took the only chair in her small apartment. He wondered if the difference in their rooms actually bothered her, or if she was just looking for reasons to be upset.

Nihlus put the bag on her desk and sat on the cot. Shepard rummaged through the sack, setting aside the dextro-alcohol he'd brought for himself and placing the tequila bottle next to her. She manifested two shot glasses and slid one in his direction. After she'd had a shot, she rested her elbows on her knees and cradled the glass in both hands.

Realizing she wasn't going to say anything, he spoke first. "About what happened at Redshift-"

"It happened." She interrupted as soon as the words left his mouth, "I don't need another psych eval, but then you'd know that from my files."

He decided to ignore the snide comment. "You don't want to know why I broke my word?"

Shepard shrugged and poured herself another shot. "I'm sure you had a good reason."

He poured himself one least he fall several drinks behind while they spoke. "I did."

"Well there you go." More silence. More shots.

"I didn't know who you were." He started again, referencing her comment on looking up her files. She obviously didn't like being looked into.

It took him a moment to gather himself to bring it up, since he knew he'd have to have the same conversation again later, when he explained how he'd referred her to the Spectres. He didn't want to worry about how she'd react to that right now.

"If I did, nothing would have happened." _Nothing did happen_, he reminded himself. Shepard seemed more interested in the tequila than what he was saying. "And it would have been my loss." That made her snort.

"Look, Nihlus," She gave him a sidelong glance. It sounded strange to hear his name from her lips. "If you're trying to sweet talk me-"

"I'm trying to be honest," he snapped. _Calm down. Don't woo angry_. "I have no interest in sweet-talking you." _Liar_. "I also have no interest in explaining myself, but I'm doing it anyway. If you'd prefer I didn't…" He trailed off and waited.

Shepard didn't say anything, so he continued. "I take my job seriously. You'd have only gotten in the way." She rolled her eyes, and he took her flippancy as a good sign. He finished his third shot and leaned over to set it down on the table. "But you're already in the way."

"Well color me seduced, smooth talker." Shepard quipped, shifting in her seat. She looked torn between playful and uncomfortable, and rubbed the back of her neck while keeping her eyes off him.

"Look," She stood up abruptly and he followed suit, running off instinct and not thought. Mixing alcohol and stims was another not-so-bright idea. "Thanks for the tequila, but you're wasting your time." She walked him to the door, which was to say, she took three steps back and ran out of room. Her eyes fixed on the window, which Nihlus hadn't realized existed until just now. It had to be the smallest window he'd ever seen. "I don't want to do this cheaply, not anymore."

"Neither do I." Nihlus felt relieved. If that was her only issue, he wouldn't have to spend the evening justifying his actions and his instincts. He'd faced enough of that in the military; he didn't need it from a relationsomething.

His inability to compromise was probably what kept him single, but she seemed just as incapable. It was reassuring; the way she still wouldn't look at him wasn't. He closed the distance between them, and trailed a talon down the scar on her face. "I-spied-on-you-too," She blurted at the contact.

He stiffened, and must have looked imposing enough to intimidate her. She took a step back.

Nihlus tried not to be affronted. Privacy was an illusion; no one knew that better than the Spectres. The galaxy's secrets were at his finger tips; he had clearance to things that would make the Shadow Broker blush. Why should his secrets be any different?

"And?" Nothing she could have found would be flattering. He'd had his name removed from three separate legions. Technically, his time in the military had been for nothing. He knew what a turian would think of it; he had no idea what a human would.

Shepard turned around and scrambled under her desk, searching for something he couldn't see. When she found it, she crawled backwards and knocked her head on the underside of her desk trying to get out. "Ass," She swore through grit teeth, knocking the chair over in a fit of catharsis when she finally freed herself. The entire episode was far from graceful.

Nihlus tried not to laugh. He'd been worried about his past being unflattering to Commander Shepard, one of humanity's most decorated soldiers. He'd almost forgotten who that soldier was.

She handed him a datapad and rubbed the back of her neck again. "I paid an information broker for the intel." She explained, the hastily added, "I didn't read it."

"Sounds like you didn't get your credit's worth." He set the datapad down on the desk, and then returned to his spot on the cot. "What do you want to know?"

He poured himself another shot, waiting for an onslaught of uncomfortable questions. He expected her to ask about his family or his military career. He didn't expect her to pull her chair up in front of him, throw her feet across his lap, and ask, "What's your favorite color?"

"Red," His face twitched as he tried not to laugh once he realized what was happening. He made an awkward effort to remove her shoes, and threw the question back at her. "Yours?"

"Same," She took her shoes off for him when he frayed one of her laces with his talons, "Song?"

"Die for the Cause." It couldn't be helped. Nihlus had heard it every day for years in the military. As far as he knew, turians weren't allowed to have a different favorite song. "Movie?"

"Starless." She returned immediately. He was surprised it wasn't a human film he'd never heard of. She may not have thought so, but at least he wasn't lying when he told the Council she wasn't like her gang.

Starless was an asari gothic horror filmed on Faringor, a world with no atmosphere. Its set was still preserved by the vacuum of space. He'd been once, not that he'd ever admit to it. Shepard raised an eyebrow at him for his favorite movie while he kicked off his boots.

"The Phage." A cheap salarian horror film, so low-budget she'd likely never heard of it. Shepard grinned; she must have recognized it. Well, that confirmed it. She couldn't hate other races if she didn't hate their culture.

Shepard leaned her chair back on two pegs and stretched out, tapping her glass on the table as she tried to think of another question. "What's a Supernova?" She decided finally.

"A quarian thruster fuel mixed with dextro-Tupari."

"I knew it was a fruity drink."

Nihlus huffed, "Tupari has no fruit in it."

"… A fruit drink with no fruit. Well that's just stupid." Shepard set her drink aside and took a deep breath, a sure sign she was going to be serious. "This doesn't break regulation?" She dropped down to all four pegs. "Is this even allowed?"

"If I said no, would you care?"

"Not really. I mean, I hit on you so I could learn more about… well, you. Before I knew you were you."

"That makes two of us." As uncomfortable as it made him to admit it, Nihlus was sure his willingness to be with a human had been motivated by his interest in learning more about Commander Shepard's race. Selfish and irrational, but then, what one-night stand wasn't?

Now that he knew who she was, and was interested in her for her, he still felt selfish and irrational. He'd effectively erased her past and was trying to force himself into her future.

"Aren't we renegades, breaking rules, hearts, bones..." She glanced at his chest, where he'd been shot after a Red had blinded him with a flash-grenade. "How's your side?"

"I'm fine." Part of him wanted to bring the Reds up again, but if she said she was fine, then he supposed she was fine. She certainly didn't seem to have any reservations when she got up from her chair and sat in his lap. She trailed her fingers, all five of them (which oddly didn't bother him), along the clan markings on his face. He stopped himself from telling her his carapace had next to no feeling and tried to appreciate the gesture for what it was.

Nihlus wrapped his hands around her waist, slid them under her shirt, and ran his talons along her skin. His carapace protected him from radiation and little else, with a side-effect of dulling his sense of touch unless it was directly on his skin. He couldn't help but appreciate the difference; Shepard felt everything everywhere, as was clearly evidenced by the contented sigh that escaped her.

"Are we crazy?" She mumbled, resting her forehead against his. Nihlus froze for a moment, and had to remind himself yet again she wasn't a turian. She didn't know what the gesture meant. It didn't mean anything to her.

"Without a doubt."

"How's this going to work?" He tried to ignore the double entendre in her words and failed, making his reply come out in a half-chuckle.

"Personal stays personal and professional stays professional."

"That never works." Shepard smiled. She'd phrased it that way on purpose.

He threw her earlier words back at her with a shrug, "There's a first time for everything."

She raked her nails down his neck, and then wrapped them around the bottom of his shirt. She was about to pull it off when Nihlus couldn't help himself. "Wait."

"What?" She frowned.

"Nothing." He tilted his head to the side, "You hear that? Silence. No calls, no assassins, no explosions…"

"Shut up," Shepard laughed, "You'll jinx us."


	21. Acceleration

Acceleration

Shepard woke to the smell of burning. It was a familiar, unpleasant smell, with a familiar, pleasant source. She groaned and threw a pillow over her head, which was a feat in and of itself.

It was a feat merely because her pillow was no ordinary pillow. It was a turian pillow, which basically meant it was a hard oval designed to fit in-between fringe and ridge, and she hated it.

Just like she hated the bed she was on, with its strange contours that seemed like they were trying to rip out her spine and beat her to death with it. And just like she hated the sheets that were as cold as plastic and just as comfortable. And just like she hated the fact that she hadn't thought to bring any of her own sheets or pillows with her.

It wasn't as if she didn't have the time to go get them, but it always seemed as if she had more important things to do. Like Nihlus… now that they had adequate supplies of EpiPens and contraceptives. Shepard did _not_ want to relive three nights ago, when she'd made a very awkward, very uncomfortable, very terrified call to the station's clinic.

Once they were sure they hadn't accidently killed each other, they'd spent the rest of the night sitting in the clinic listening to a lengthy, embarrassing lecture on interspecies relations that very nearly killed her sex drive all together. If she heard the word 'chafing' one more time, Shepard swore she'd punch someone.

Sighing, she stretched out on the torture device he called a bed and immediately regretted it. Everything hurt. She was covered in bruises, scratches, bite marks, and every day she made it worse for herself. It was annoying. Combat meant a hardsuit which meant a regular supply of medigel. … Exercise… meant no medigel.

"I regret nothing." Shepard mumbled to herself and climbed out of bed. The smell of smoke and ruined breakfast made her wrinkle her nose. She'd asked him not to make her breakfast. He'd said he didn't mind cooking.

"That's sweet," She'd smiled wanly, sitting on his kitchen counter. Bastard had gotten an even bigger suite after Terra Libera blew his door off, "But I mind dying."

He chuffed, shaking a pan over the burner. She didn't recognize the blob inside it, and sorely hoped he was making his own breakfast first. "I'm not going to kill you."

The blob popped and gurgled inside out, hissing steam and foam. Shepard felt nauseous. "Well you're sure trying."

"Then I make a bad assassin, not a bad chef," He was wearing what she guessed was the turian equivalent of an apron, and that was all he was wearing. "I cook for myself every day."

"Turian food. For a turian," She stretched her leg out and poked him with her toe. "Human food is different… harder."

She must have chosen the wrong choice of words, as Nihlus had looked even more offended. "We beat your armies; we can cook your food."

"Beat our armies?" Shepard scoffed, hopping off the counter and folding her arms over her chest. She was naked, so it was hardly intimidating, but it was the principle of the gesture that mattered.

"If I recall correctly, you surrendered at Shanxi," He wasn't even paying attention, still focused on cooking his hissing blob. "To a turian, that's defeat."

Shepard poked him roughly in the chest, "If _I_ recall correctly, we took Shanxi back. To a human, that's victory." They'd fought so adamantly and so long they'd forgotten about the food, and were close to storming out on each other when the pan burst into wild flames and they'd panicked to stop it from setting off the alarms. He never had told her if he'd been cooking it for her.

Rolling her shoulders back, Shepard picked up the shirt by the nightstand next to the bed and threw it on. It was originally one of Nihlus's undershirts, but was now officially hers after she'd accidently ripped the sleeves.

"It's not my fault your arms are so thin." She'd muttered, plucking at the frayed seams.

"True," He'd chuckled, thankfully taking it all in good stride. She'd been mortified. "But it is your fault yours aren't."

"Are you calling me fat?" She'd frowned. The sleeves flapped down her arms, tiny black flags of independence.

Nihlus opened and closed his mouth, wisely thinking twice on whatever he'd been about to say. "… If it's offensive, no, if it's flattering, yes."

It was a good answer, she'd decided. It had derailed into Nihlus telling her how batarian culture found more mass to be more appealing, and then just about batarian culture in general. Apparently, the slavers and raiders the Alliance encountered were the minority, and most of their people never left batarian space. Even knowing, she still had trouble not thinking of them as the 'four-eyed menace.' One race at a time, Shepard. One race at a time.

Shepard pulled at his shirt. It hung awkwardly down her chest, clung too tight about her arms and turned into a corset at her waist. Nihlus had given her a bewildered look and asked why she even wanted to wear it. "It's a human thing," had been her impromptu explanation.

She glanced at the kitchen, where the charred horror lay in wait. She heard sizzling and pops she was sure no human food was supposed to make, followed by turian cursing that made her translator fritz. Realizing he was trying to make her breakfast, Shepard decided to stay in his room until he gave up.

A stack of datapads and files lay on the nightstand, making a trail from the bed to the desk in the far corner of the room. A treasure trove of orange shimmered there, datapads and Nihlus's terminal illuminating the room as effectively as actual lights.

That marked the other half of their time together: combing through all of the intel they'd gathered on Terra Libera and the Reds; chasing down leads to dead ends or hideouts. None of it had brought them any closer to finding out who had ordered the hit, but at the risk of sounding like a sap, Shepard felt like it brought _them_ closer together.

While their relationship with station security was strained at best, they'd managed to find the warehouse the customs' agent had used to transfer confiscated goods to the mercenary group. On a show of good faith, security had handed the tip off to the local Spectre, knowing he'd had a personal interest in Terra Libera.

They'd expected to find a large room full of crates and little else. They hadn't expected to find it full of mercenaries who'd gone to ground after the loss of their main base. Thankfully, neither Shepard nor Nihlus believed in going anywhere unprepared.

"It's our third date," She'd pointed out, crouched beneath a crate under a barrage of gunfire. "Can we frag yet?"

Nihlus popped out of cover to snipe an enemy she couldn't see, then ducked back down. "Don't pressure me."

Biotic energy swirled around her, and Shepard tried to unleash it at the mercenaries. Instead, she accidentally let go before she was ready, and sent her own cover flying up and smashing into the ceiling, which left her completely exposed.

Her kinetic barriers flickered in protest as the enemy squads redirected their fire. She didn't have time to berate herself when a huge weight struck her in the side and sent her crashing behind a new cover. Nihlus picked himself off her and resumed suppressing fire as if he hadn't just tackled her into safety.

Shepard ducked out of her new cover and launched an overload techmine, leaving two mercs vulnerable to a single shot each from her pistol. "I'm starting to think you'll never put out." Shepard continued as if nothing had happened.

"Well maybe if you took me somewhere nice for once," Nihlus shot back.

Their report back to station security had been conspicuously absent of the jokes that entertained them throughout the raid. Shepard pitied the fool who had to review the security feeds on the warehouse. They probably looked like psychopaths, putting the 'laughter' in 'slaughter,' not that anyone would question them on it. Part of her wished she had Nihlus's ability to invoke the Council's name like the right hand of God. The other part of her took one look at his paperwork and didn't begrudge him a thing.

Shepard glanced at the datapads on the nightstand. The one at the bottom of the pile was, as always, the one she'd bought from the information broker. Buried beneath mountains of others, all that showed of it was "Nihlus Kyrik" in orange letters at the top. _Just a peek_…

The accelerometers in her fingers chose that moment to itch. She still hadn't read it. Their fight had been resolved before it had even begun, before he'd even showed up with tequila. They'd handled their issues on their own, and just needed to see each other again to realize neither of them were really mad. Everything was fine. She had no reason to drive a rift between them.

_But what did it say?_ Shepard growled and grabbed a different datapad without looking at it. Nihlus had likely left it there on purpose, trying to see if she'd breach his trust. _But he hadn't said she couldn't read it_…

"He also didn't say you could." Shepard muttered to herself. She stared down at the datapad she'd picked up. The title 'Creative Use of Mass Effect Fields' stared back up at her and she snorted. She'd downloaded it off the extranet (with Nihlus's Spectre access, of course) a day ago. He'd taken one look at the name and fled the room.

Shepard stared through the datapad without reading it. Her eyes slid back towards the intel and she yanked them away. With nothing else to focus on, they kept treacherously sliding back. After several minutes of feeling like she was watching a tennis match, Shepard finally dropped her datapad. _Just a quick glance. There won't be anything interesting, and then it'll be out of your system. _She leaned over the edge of the bed and reached for the datapad when a noise at the door startled her.

"I was thinking we could-"

Shepard squawked in surprise and toppled face first onto the floor. Her legs tangled in the blankets and she grabbed for the edge of the nightstand to catch herself. Instead she caught her hand on his datapad and sent them all flying. When she finally righted herself, Nihlus was watching the entire scene impassively from the doorway. "What are you smiling about?" She grumbled, though he wasn't smiling.

"Just enjoying the sight of a human on her knees." He returned immediately.

"Right," Shepard rolled her eyes and stood up, haphazardly attempting to restack all the datapads.

"Well, before that-… that," He gave up trying to find a word for her ladylike grace, "I was saying, I thought we could go out for drinks, before the Normandy docks."

Shepard spun around so quickly a datapad slipped from her hands and flung itself at him. Nihlus caught it without blinking. "That's today?"

"This evening." He clarified, setting the datapad down on the desk.

"Ass!" Shepard swore, running her hands through her hair. "I have to pack, dye my hair-"

"Dye your hair?"

"Review personnel files," Shepard paced in a quick circle, "Double ass."

"Your affinity for that word is more than a little disturbing."

"It's a human thing." Shepard replied immediately with what had become her scapegoat for all of her quirks. Shepard glanced back up at him, he looked off, and she couldn't place why. Nihlus looked as he said, more than a little disturbed, though whether it was over her diction or hair-dye, she couldn't say.

She couldn't place what seemed strange. Same face paint, same striking eyes, same -… clothes. He was wearing clothes. Her face twisted apologetically. "I can't," She sighed. She liked going out for drinks as much as she liked her new company for doing so. "I have things I need to take care of, responsibilities-"

Nihlus cut her off. "You don't need to explain."

Shepard went over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. They fit perfectly beneath his fringe and ridge, while his fit perfectly around her waist. Everything had fallen together, fallen apart, and fallen back together again, to fit in place perfectly.

His carapace was too hard, her skin was too soft, her hair caught on him, he caught on her hair, and they were allergic to each other to top it all off. She hardly noticed, she doubted he did either. She felt comfortable, she was comfortable.

"Right," She sighed with relief. "I'll see you on the ship." He understood; he always understood. Her biotics, her tendency towards explosives and tendency to explode… The only thing he hadn't understood was the Reds and- and Shepard didn't want to think about the Reds right now. Or ever again.

She needed a new color. Shepard thought of her Alliance blues, at first. Until she felt a talon tracing the scar on her face, and glanced up at Nihlus's eyes.

Maybe green.


	22. Diffusion

Diffusion

Keystroke Log

_-BEGIN NEW MESSAGE_

"_Saren,"_

_-ERASE LINE_

"_My friend,"_

_-ERASE LINE_

"_Brother,_

_I know I've disappointed you in choosing to mentor a human, but their race deserves a chance"_

_-PARTIAL LINE ERASE_

"_deserves the chance you gave me. I should have said this in person. Instead I dishonored your grief"_

_-PARTIAL LINE ERASE_

"_dishonored your brother's memory. When next you have the chance, I would apologize in person. Ours is not a friendship I could stand to lose."_

_-SAVE DRAFT AND EXIT_

Nihlus swore loudly and gave up. Saren was no easier to apologize to over the extranet than he was in person, but at least in person he could add body language and a guys' night out to his apology.

With a sigh, he rolled his head around on his neck, sore from staring down at his omnitool, and then sniffed. Smoke. Smoke meant fire. Which meant he'd burnt Shepard's breakfast. Again.

Cursing again, louder and more creatively than before, he grabbed the pan off the burner and dumped it into his sink. It hissed at him, furious, and sent a spray of steam into his face. Nihlus swore again and stumbled backwards, scratching at his carapace, half expecting his clan markings to melt off.

Growling, he turned off the burner and stared at the sink. He'd forgotten what he'd been trying to make her, and now he was sure he'd never know. The black, charred lump in the sink offered no clues as to what it had once been.

It looked like they were going out to eat. Again. He made a point of making his footsteps loud to warn Shepard he was coming, scratching his talons along the metal. She was staring very intently at a datapad, then tossed it aside and reached for another.

He must not have been loud enough, because she fell in a tangle of limbs, bed sheets, and screams. A short conversation revealed she hadn't even been aware of what day it was, and left her wrapped in his arms. He was hardly surprised with either revelation. They'd been in something of their own little world for the past few days.

He was idly tracing the scar on her face when she glanced up at him. Shepard had countless scars, much like him, but he liked this one in particular, because he knew how she'd gotten it.

"What?" He rumbled at her stare, refusing to drop his hand.

"Just thinking." Shepard shrugged, dragging her nails along his neck. He leaned into the touch. If she really wanted to hurry, she was making a poor argument.

"About?" He dropped his talons from her scar and countered her trailing hands with two of his own.

"If I wanted you to know I'd be talking." Shepard wrapped a leg around him, _damn, she wasn't wearing any pants_, and pushed herself up to bite his neck, the strange sensation of flat teeth always drove him mad.

"I think I have an idea." Nihlus muttered, wrapping his talons around her backside to carry her back to the bed, which she shoved abruptly away from him.

"You'd be wrong." Shepard smirked, and quickly started gathering her things. Nihlus scratched away her phantom touch, frustrated. He should have expected it. As if she'd leave him any other way.

He started picking up the datapads she'd scattered, and stopped on the one with his name scrawled across it. "Would I?" He twisted it idly in a talon.

Shepard cast him a smile over her shoulder that died when she saw what he was holding. "I haven't read it."

"You can." He shrugged disinterestedly, setting it on the bed, apart from the rest of the stacks.

Shepard looked at it like a starving man might look at food before she ripped her eyes away. "I don't want to." She finished dressing and glanced around for the rest of her things, before realizing she didn't have any. Her eyes lingered on the datapad one last time, and she went to the door. Nihlus caught her around the waist.

"Not interested?" He breathed into her ear. Shepard didn't melt, but did nudge her forehead against his. It was a decidedly turian gesture, one she still couldn't know the significance of.

"I'm interested," She mumbled.

"But?"

"But I'd rather hear it from you." She covered his mouth with her hand, and cut her palm on his fangs. She didn't even flinch. Blood trailed down her skin and along his lips. "Not right now."

"And if I never tell you?" The metallic taste of her blood set off a mild reaction. He could feel his mouth numbing and knew it would feel like cotton for a few hours.

"Then you never tell me." She moved her hand to run it along his face. He wished he could feel it. He ran a hand along her face anyway. Shepard could feel it, even if he couldn't.

"That doesn't bother you?"

"You think you know everything about me?"

"Yes."

"Ass." She laughed.

Shepard ended up leaving later than she would have preferred, and sooner than Nihlus would have. Her blood dried on his face, over his clan markings, like she'd nullified them. He looked at himself in the mirror, the streak of red on one side of his face that broke the patterns of white. He'd wash it off later.

Nihlus went to clean the charred dishes instead, wondering if they were lost cause, and what he should do for the rest of the day. He could try to call Sa-

Saren. How was he going to tell Saren about Shepard?

Keystroke Log

_-BEGIN NEW MESSAGE_

_-EXIT_

_-BEGIN NEW MESSAGE_

_-EXIT_

_-BEGIN NEW MESSAGE_

"_Fuck."_

_-EXIT_

"Captain Anderson," Nihlus effortlessly shook the man's hand. It was a gesture he would have been incapable of a few days ago, but he'd spent more time than he cared to admit practicing it with Shepard.

"Agent Nihlus." The human returned, his voice tired but firm. "I've heard a lot of good things about you."

"Likewise." It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't exactly the truth either. He'd read good things from Anderson's file, he'd heard just the opposite from Saren.

"Well, it's a pleasure to have you aboard," He sounded genuine, "I'm more than prepared to offer my quarters for the trip to Eden Prime." Nihlus was more than a little thrown. The gesture was reserved for superior officers, and even then was a generous one. The man in front of him wasn't anything like the man Saren had told him about.

"No reason to nettle the crew further, Captain." Nihlus declined. He'd already gotten more than a few stares, most of them from the navigator. "I'm fine the usual accommodations."

"At least let us set you up in your own room behind medbay," Anderson insisted, "Can't have a Spectre bunking with the grunts,"

Nihlus tilted his head in acquiescence and didn't argue further. He knew Captain Anderson was just trying to make a good impression with a Council representative, but Nihlus got the sense that he would have insisted anyway.

"I know you've seen the blueprints, but schematics never compare to the real thing. She's a beauty, that's for sure." Anderson led him on a tour through the ship, Nihlus walking drag the entire time.

In human culture, leaders walked point. In turian, they walked aft. Nihlus was bemused. Anderson wasn't so polite as to let him forget whose ship it was, but the contention meant it could go both ways.

Anderson managed to end the tour at his room, somehow without doubling back on any location. "I think you've already met most of the crew. The only one we're missing is our XO, Commander Shepard. Though-"

"That was awesome!" A cry of childlike wonder came from the mess hall. Nihlus recognized the voice as Corporal Jenkins, the eager young man who'd followed him throughout the tour, adding peanut gallery commentary. That he already recognized his voice was a bad sign.

Jenkins' yell was quickly followed by, "What the hell is going on in here!" in another voice Nihlus recognized.

"That will be Shepard," Anderson chuckled with a rueful shake of his head. "If you'll excuse me, Spectre, I should go defuse this while you get settled." He gave a polite nod of his head, and then walked out as quickly as possible without breaking stride.

Nihlus had nothing to settle. The crew had brought his crate into his room, and he was wearing the rest of what he owned. He followed Captain Anderson through the medbay and out into the mess.

Jenkins' beret was on the floor by the lockers. The man himself was paused in the middle of leaning down to pick it up, his head turned towards the other end of the mess. An elderly woman, who'd been introduced moments earlier as Doctor Chakwas, was hovering nervously about him, but had also turned to stare across the room.

On that side was the ship's registered biotic, Kalian? Karen? Kay-something Alenko, pinned to the wall by a woman Nihlus barely recognized.

Shepard's multicolored hair had been dyed jet black, and hung about her shoulders, rather than in the strict ponytail he preferred. Her casual clothes were replaced with a formal Commander's uniform, which clung in all the right places for a turian. He wasn't sure if humans found it flattering.

"Stand down, Commander," Anderson ordered gruffly. Shepard immediately released her chokehold on Alenko, who propped himself against the wall rubbing his throat. "What's going on here?"

Jenkins straightened his beret, unaware he'd put it own backwards, and quickly spoke up. "It's my fault, sir! The LT was just giving a demonstration. I asked him to. The commander came in late and well…"

Shepard straightened imaginary wrinkles out of her uniform, clearly embarrassed and trying her best to hide it. The navy blues sagged under the weight of all her medals. She stood at attention, nodded to Anderson and Alenko, and mumbled an unintelligible apology. It took everything in Nihlus not to guffaw out loud.

"Well, that wasn't exactly the introduction I'd hoped for." Anderson joked, "Alenko, Jenkins, meet your commanding officer."

"A pleasure ma'am," Alenko wheezed, still massaging his bruised windpipe. Jenkins saluted, grinning like a fool.

"Commander, if we could speak in private," Anderson gestured away from the mess and Shepard nodded, quickly following him out. She shot Nihlus a glare as she left, and he gave her his best 'I didn't say anything' look.

"Ah man! Did you see that!" Jenkins exclaimed the second they were out of eyesight, though not necessarily earshot. "She totally owned you, sir! I've never seen someone move that fast! Man, isn't she a biotic too? You two should spar!" He was practically bouncing up and down.

"I sincerely hope you're kidding Corporal," Doctor Chakwas shook her head, fussing over Alenko once she was sure Jenkins was fine. "Such recklessness was almost broke your back and the Lieutenant's neck."

Jenkins rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Ah come on, Doc. It was cool."

Alenko stared off in the direction Shepard and Anderson had gone, his eyes far away. "It was pretty impressive…" He mumbled to no one in particular. Nihlus disliked him instantly.

He spent the trip assessing the crew and speaking with Captain Anderson about the upcoming mission to Eden Prime. For the most part, the crew of the Normandy ignored him outside of the occasional suspicious glance. It felt so much like his time in the military he couldn't help but be bemused. What didn't feel at all like his time in the military was the chatty, starry-eyed, human shadow he'd gained.

When Corporal Jenkins wasn't trailing him, asking question after question, less than half of which Nihlus actually answered, he was trailing Shepard. The two of them made an unspoken game of it, both of them trying to pass the Corporal off to the other.

That was the extent of his intentional interaction with her. The unintentional was far more unnerving. It seemed whenever he wasn't looking for her, trying to pass Jenkins off, he ran into her. He'd turn a corner and she'd literally run into him. Go into the mess to eat and have her suddenly waiting in the queue behind him. Leave Anderson's room to see her coming in. Nihlus shook himself. It was a small ship. He was bound to bump into her, he was just being paranoid.

When she appeared at the door to his room just as he was leaving, he nearly leapt out of his carapace. He coughed loudly to cover up his unease and stared down at her, wondering what she wanted.

"We have got to stop running into each other like this." Shepard grinned. Chakwas was in the mess, and they could talk freely for once. It was beyond frustrating to be so close to her and still so far away.

"I feel like I have a stalker." He was only half-joking.

"You mean two stalkers." Shepard groaned, leaning back against the doorframe to his room.

"The corporal is certainly… enthusiastic." Nihlus offered.

"I was coming to hide from him, actually." Shepard rubbed the back of her neck and glanced over her shoulder, as if she expected Jenkins to appear at any moment.

"My room is free," He twitched his hand invitingly behind him. "I was just leaving to head up to the bridge," At her blank stare – he swore she had no concept of time – he elaborated "We'll be hitting the relay to Eden Prime soon."

Shepard grinned, and crossed her arms over her chest, "I didn't know you liked watching the transit."

"It's just one more marvel of Prothean technology." Nihlus shrugged. "Anderson will be busy, if you wanted to make an appearance for the crew."

"Less than tempting." He couldn't blame her. She'd spent the entire trip getting acquainted with everyone when she wasn't being debriefed by Anderson. He wondered if she'd even bothered to review personnel files like she'd claimed.

He glanced at the window to the mess; they were out of its line of sight. Nihlus put his hand on the frame beside her head, "You could make an appearance for me."

"More than tempting," Shepard put her hand on his face, ran it along his fringe, then down his neck. "You know, this isn't much of a shakedown run," She mumbled, making him freeze and wonder how much she really knew about why they were heading to Eden Prime. Then he caught the undertone in her words and kicked himself.

He recovered too late, Shepard noticed him stiffen. They were inches from each other, she couldn't not have. "It isn't a shakedown run, is it?" She grinned impishly up at him. He did his best to glare disapprovingly. It didn't work. She must have known she'd find out soon enough if he didn't tell her. She was too clever for her own good.

Nihlus wrapped his hand around her neck and pressed their foreheads together. She didn't know what it meant. It didn't have to mean anything. "I'll see you on the bridge, Commander,"


	23. Elemental

Elemental

"Commander, I'm confused." Anderson frowned at her from his desk.

"Sounds like a fairly common occurrence." Shepard blurted before she could stop herself. _And you thought you'd changed_. Anderson massaged his temples in a way that made it seem as if he was face-palming for her. _Well someone had to_.

She shifted uncomfortably as Anderson let the silence grow. The awkward silence was apparently the only reprimand she was going to get before he continued. "I've read your files. Now I know, a service record doesn't tell you much about a person. Hell, it didn't say much about John Grissom, and it doesn't say much about me, but I thought I knew what to expect. Now, I get a report from Arcturus about how you're blowing up civilian establishments like fireworks on the Fourth of July."

"Sir, I can explain-" Shepard's blood ran cold. She couldn't be court marshaled. Couldn't be thrown off this ship. It was the only way she could stay with Nihlus.

"But you're not going to." _Ass. Shit. Fuck. Ass. Defuse this. You have to defuse this. Think of something. Think_- "Gangs, mercenaries, xenophobes, terrorists… You cleaned up the station more in a few days than security had in a few years. I can't and won't say I approve of your methods, but I thought I knew what to expect…" He smiled tiredly, "I'm glad I was wrong." He gave a light nod towards the door from his room and turned back to his desk. "Dismissed Commander."

Dazed, Shepard wasn't sure when or how she left the captain's room, only than she ran into Nihlus when she did. She stopped herself with both hands on his chest and he wrapped his hands around her shoulders. She grinned lopsidedly at him; the look he gave her blatantly asked, 'Are you well?'

She didn't care if she looked drugged. She could explain, but as Anderson had said, she wasn't going to. She had changed. Others saw it. She wasn't a Red. She didn't need the station and its window anymore. She had a new reason never to go back to Earth. A new reason never to go anywhere else.

"Excuse me Spectre," She said loudly to see if anyone was paying attention to them. No one was. Nihlus was still staring at her as if he was afraid she was going to be ill, but released her with a nod. She smacked his ass as she left, and had the satisfaction of hearing him trip and stumble in shock into Anderson's room.

Maybe it wasn't a human thing. Maybe it wasn't even her thing. But it sure as hell was her turian.

Shepard spent the rest of the shakedown run whistling through the ship and grinning like a fool. Or would have, if Corporal Jenkins had let her. The man was enamored with every mundane detail of her life she never stopped twice to think about, and followed her through the halls with "Did you really"'s and "Is it true that"'s.

Had she really graduated Officer Cadet School as an N7 First Lieutenant at twenty, and did she know that Captain Anderson was the only other person to do so, and how did she control her biotics if she'd never been to BaAT and what was Earth like because he'd never been, and what were the Theshaca Raids like because he couldn't wait to see active duty and WHERE WAS NIHLUS!

Shepard ducked into medbay and pressed herself up against the wall. The only time the Corporal ever left her alone was when he was throwing out just as many questions at Nihlus. She'd managed to escape for the moment, but wasn't sure how long she could hide before he found her. Dropping to the ground, she shimmied across the floor so no one could see her through the window to the mess. When she reached Nihlus's door, she keyed the pad and was about to duck in just as he was leaving.

One honest conversation later, and she was resting with her forehead pressed up against his. Shepard wasn't sure what the gesture meant, and barely managed to restrain herself from looking it up. If she had to guess, she'd say it was a turian hug, or kiss, or something similar, since Nihlus always closed his eyes when she did it. But he'd never done it to her before.

"Nihlus?"

"Hm?" Shepard opened and closed her mouth, a hesitation Nihlus didn't see. It probably didn't mean anything. There was no sense asking.

"It's your turn." She said instead. Nihlus groaned and pushed away from her, glancing out at the mess.

"You're a cruel sort of person." It took her a moment to realize he was quoting what she'd said to him when they first met. A few more before she remembered what his reply had been.

"You don't even know me." She grinned, crossing her arms over her chest.

He stopped halfway to the door to glance back at her, "Yes I do." Something in the intensity of his gaze and the way he'd said it made her breath hitch, but he was out the door before she could reply.

Shepard watched Nihlus leave, and then started counting. She figured if she gave him a few minutes head-start, Jenkins would latch onto him and she'd be free and clear. She glanced in his room in the meantime; it was sparse, almost empty. His terminal and any datapads he'd brought were safely stowed away in his locker, which was right next to hers and had made for an easy excuse to press up against each other.

Shepard got lost in her daydream and almost forgot she was supposed to be watching the transit with him. Mentally kicking herself, she hurried out of medbay and up to the bridge. She practically had to run to reach it in time.

"The Arcturus Prime relay is in range. Initiating transmission sequence," Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, who everyone called Joker for some reason, announced over the intercom. Shit. She was going to miss it. And Jenkins was coming right at her.

Nihlus was already at the bridge, and Jenkins was doubtless just skipping back from whatever question he'd made him answer. "Commander," He grinned and opened his mouth, ready to flood her with questions or compliments. She side-stepped around him with a nod and kept walking.

"We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination," Joker continued. Jenkins didn't follow. Shepard breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, at which Navigator Pressly nodded, assuming she was smiling at him. She almost opened her mouth to correct him before she caught herself. _Idiot. How would you correct that? Why would you correct that?_

"Relay is hot. Acquiring approach vector. All stations secure for transit." Shepard almost ran into an ensign, and she held up a hand to keep the two of them from colliding in a heap on the bridge. Since she didn't run into him, she had perfect timing.

Shepard stared smugly out the window at the approaching mass relay. Nihlus gave her a look she pretended not to notice. "The board is green. Approach run has begun. Hitting the relay in 3… 2… 1…" Joker counted down, likely to make the moment more dramatic. It worked.

The relay loomed, bright, blue, and beautiful, its arms spinning faster and faster as it prepared to warp the fabric of space and send them instantaneously across the galaxy. The vortex of energy expanded and burst, like a brilliant supernova, and swept them along in the shockwave.

It was breathtaking, and it was over far too soon.

Joker started going over the systems, as attentive as if he'd been picking dirt out of his finger nails. "Thrusters… check. Navigation… check. Internal emissions sink engaged. All systems online. Drift… just under 1500k." He ended his analysis with more than a hint of smugness in his voice.

Nihlus looked impressed. "1500 is good. Your captain will be pleased." Shepard tried not be jealous of the compliment. It was an impressive jump. Most pilots were lucky to get under 2000k. Nihlus turned and left, likely to inform Captain Anderson.

"I hate that guy." Joker muttered under his breath.

Alenko voiced his disbelief before Shepard could, "Nihlus gave you a compliment… so you hate him?"

Joker inhaled for what Shepard guessed would be a lengthy tirade. She guessed right. "You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom? That's good. I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead. So that's incredible! Besides, Spectres are trouble. I don't like having him on board." Seeing neither party readily agreeing with him, he added, "Call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid," Alenko complied almost immediately. "The Council helped fund this project. They have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

Joker snorted. "Yeah, that is the official story. But only an idiot believes the official story."

"That's enough," They gossiped more than old women. "You're soldiers. Act like it!"

Alenko cringed, "Sorry, Commander."

Anderson's voice burst in over the speakers. "Joker! Status report!"

"Just cleared the mass relay, Captain. Stealth systems engaged. Everything looks solid." Apparently solid was better than good.

"Good," Anderson replied, making Shepard want to laugh. Good was apparently all Joker got. "Find a comm. buoy and link us into the network. I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance brass _before _we reach Eden Prime."

"Aye aye, Captain." Joker sullenly gave up on getting the praise he wanted. "Better brace yourself, sir, I think Nihlus is heading your way."

"He's already here, lieutenant," Anderson growled with all the annoyance Shepard felt. "Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm. room for a debriefing"

"You get that, Commander?" Joker asked over his shoulder, likely for her snide comment.

_No, I'm deaf, _Shepard almost snapped_._ "I'm on my way."

"Pfft, is it me or does the Captain always sound a little pissed off?" She heard Joker ask obliviously as she left.

"Only when he's talking to you, Joker." Alenko chuckled.

Shepard shook her head and left the old ladies to their gossip. She stopped briefly to chat with Pressly, feeling guilty for accidentally smiling at him, of all things, and had almost made it to her destination when she was forced into a conversation with Jenkins and Chakwas. Passing him off to the doctor as quickly as she could, Shepard stepped around them and into the room.

Only Nihlus was waiting for her. Shepard was about to make a joke about a 'personal debriefing' when he turned around and interrupted her.

"Commander Shepard," _Damn. Strictly professional._ "I was hoping you'd get here first. It will give us a chance to talk."

"What about?" Shepard suppressed a grin. Nihlus was pacing. Likely to remind him to keep his hands to himself.

"I'm interested in this world we're going to – Eden Prime," He gestured to the hologram of the world behind him, laid out in all its garden glory. "I've heard it's quite beautiful."

"I've never been there." She shrugged uselessly.

"But you know if it," Nihlus insisted. "Eden Prime has become something of a symbol for your people, hasn't it? Proof that humanity can not only establish colonies across the galaxy, but also protect them. But how safe is it, really?"

"Are you trying to scare me, Spectre?" She raised an eyebrow at him playfully and took a few steps forward. They were still alone, so why not? The bastard was drawing it out on purpose. She could tell he was trying not to laugh at her.

"Your people are still newcomers Shepard. The galaxy can be a _very _dangerous place," _No shit_, Shepard almost said, when he kept talking, using the same teasing tone, "Is the Alliance truly ready for this?"

"I think it's time we told the Commander was really going on." Anderson. Shepard almost sighed. No more playful banter then… unless it was subtle playful banter…

"This mission is far more than a simple shakedown run." Nihlus was trying to be serious. Likely to remind her to be serious. Too late.

"I already figured that out." She frowned.

"We're making a covert pick-up on Eden Prime," Anderson explained, "That's why we needed the stealth systems operational."

"What's the payload, Captain?" Now they were both drawing everything out. Men.

"A research team on Eden Prime unearthed some kind of beacon during an excavation. It was Prothean." He murmured sagely. Well, that explained Nihlus's interest. He had a strange Prothean fetish.

"What else can you tell me?"

"This is big, Shepard," Anderson insisted. He must have noticed she was paying more attention to Nihlus's eyes than what they were talking about. _Focus, Shepard. Focus_. "The last time humanity made a discovery like this it jumped our technology forward two hundred years. But Eden Prime doesn't have the facilities to handle something like this. We need to bring the beacon back to the Citadel for proper study."

"Obviously, this goes beyond mere human interests, Commander. This discovery could affect every species in Council space." Nihlus continued.

"Are we expecting trouble?" She grinned at him. Nihlus wandered over to stand next to her.

"I'm always expecting trouble." He folded his arms over his chest.

"There's more Shepard," Anderson's voice called her back to herself. So much for subtle. They couldn't stop staring at each other for more than a few seconds. Maybe Anderson wouldn't notice… "Nihlus isn't just here for the beacon. He's also here to evaluate you."

"Guess that explains why I bump into him every time I turn around," Nihlus kept a stubborn straight face at the joke. Shepard cleared her throat to cover up her embarrassment.

"The Alliance has been pushing for this for a long time. Humanity wants a larger role in shaping interstellar policy. We want more say with the Citadel Council. The Spectres represent the Council's power and authority. If they accept a human into their ranks, it shows how far the Alliance has come."

Shepard stopped listening halfway through Anderson's speech. Nihlus had recommended her to the Spectres. Her immediate reaction was to snap about how she didn't like people making decisions for her, before she gave it a little more thought.

She could invoke the Council like the right hand of God and get away with almost anything. She'd have free reign to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted at the expense of a little extra paperwork. No more psych evaluations, no more superiors second guessing her allegiances or competence…

But to her credit, Shepard wasn't thinking about any of that. All she could think about was the way Nihlus was looking at her, waiting for her answer.

"Just tell me what I have to do." She whispered. _Whispered? Since when do you whisper?_

"I need to see your skills for myself, Commander. Eden Prime will be the first of… several missions together." He whispered the rest of his sentence. _Since when did he whisper? Why were they whispering?  
_

"You'll be in charge of the ground team. Secure the beacon and get it onto the ship ASAP. Nihlus will accompany you to observe the mission."

"Just give the word, Captain," Someone replied. Shepard guessed she did. She wasn't paying attention to Anderson.

"We should be getting close to Eden-" Then Joker interrupted with a distress signal that changed everything.

Shepard had seen distress calls before. She'd made distress calls before, buried under enemy fire radioing for a backup that always came too late. The call Anderson had brought up on the screen didn't look much different. A woman in Phoenix armor was carrying her small team, shouting orders in the background.

What did look different were the reactions Anderson and Nihlus had to seeing the distress call. Nihlus's mandibles flickered close to his face in an expression she'd never seen before. She tried to place it, but her guess didn't make any sense. Shock. Maybe fear.

Shepard looked back at the screen. Anderson had frozen it on a massive alien ship, with a design the likes of which she'd never seen before. It crackled with energy, flickering red lightning over a violet hull like a storm.

That didn't explain his fear. It was just a ship. Anderson and Joker were talking; she ignored them, and it finally clicked into place. A ship. A massive, advanced, unidentified ship. The signal for their assassination had come from a ship.

"Take us in, Joker. Fast and quiet. This mission just got a look more complicated." Anderson had no idea. Shepard looked at Nihlus, waiting for him to say something, explain how this had changed things. Explain how this changed everything.

"A small strike team can move quickly without drawing attention. It's our best chance to secure the beacon." But that was it. He turned around and left the comm. room.

_Like hell that was it._ Shepard nodded to an order Anderson gave her, and moved to storm out after Nihlus when his voice halted her.

"Shepard. I'm old, but I'm not that old," He nodded towards where Nihlus had gone, but had the good grace not to elaborate, "Your medical report from Chakwas a few interesting annotations that didn't make sense until now. Is there anything I should know?"

"Don't ask, don't tell, sir." Shepard muttered, staring at a point beyond Anderson's shoulder. If he had a problem with it, Shepard could think of a few places he could go. And go quickly. This was a waste of time. She had to talk to Nihlus.

Anderson folded his arms, eyebrows knitted together as he tried to stare through her. "That's not an answer."

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Granted."

"You're not getting one."


	24. Shockwave

Shockwave

Nihlus hit the ground and rolled. He went into a run as soon as he was on his feet, unlocking his assault rifle from his back and pressing himself up against the nearest cover, which turned out to be an outcropping of rocks that didn't support him as well as he would have liked.

A quick sweep of the area revealed what appeared to be a secure drop zone. Given that ships usually needed at least a hundred meters of open terrain to make a drop, it was nothing short miraculous. Eden Prime was a beautiful world. Nature clung to every outcropping, tried to climb up bare rock, burst forth around prefab units. Nothing threatened him. It was serene, tranquil, and wholly undeserving of what had befallen it.

Movement on his left drew his attention. He dropped to one knee, ready to open fire on what turned out to be nothing more than native fauna.

Straightening, he checked his omnitool and had it guide him in the direction of the dig site. It pointed straight towards the nest of strange bulbous creatures that floated for no apparent reason. Nihlus poked one with the nose of his assault rifle as he passed. Nothing happened. How disturbing.

_"Disturbing?" Shepard covered her bare chest and scooted away from him. _

_ "They don't do anything," Why did he have to open his mouth? Why couldn't he shut it? "At best, they get in the way."_

_ "_They_ get in the way?" Shepard scoffed and waved a wild hand at his chest spur, "That's something coming from you, Mister... chest… spike… thing." _

Nihlus blinked, realizing he was comparing a misshapen lump with what was meant to be an erotic part of his lover's body. It was a good thing she'd been interested from the start. If he'd been the one leading the conversation, he'd probably have gotten slapped.

Jogging towards the dig site, the path split off in two directions: north and east. His omnitool pointed north so, naturally, he went east. The crimson sky was marred with soft wisps of smoke. The colony was so peaceful, if he hadn't been here on a mission, he would have assumed someone was cooking and carried on without a second thought.

He rounded the bend and came upon what looked to be a recent scene of battle. Prefab units clustered in a quaint cul-de-sac, where neighbors could gather in the center. A small pond was encircled with stone chairs, all empty. The water was red.

_ "Why didn't you leave it red?"_

_ "Red's not my color. Not my favorite," Shepard shrugged, "At least not anymore."_

_ "And black is?"_

_ "No."_

_ "Then what is?"_

_ "Nihlus, I'm disappointed," Her eyes (at least they were still red) sparkled with mischief. "I thought you knew everything about me."_

The prefab units had been burned from the inside out, silver metal charred black. "I've got some burned out buildings here, Shepard," Nihlus radioed in. The buildings were arranged in multiple crescents, some he couldn't see, all smoking. Small rock paths paved the ground, grouted with blood. Civilians were in the center as they might have been on any day off, all dead. "A lot of bodies. I'm going to check it out. I'll try to catch up with you at the dig site."

The slaughter was recent, the bodies still warm. The wounds on all of them inconsistent with the weapons he recognized as being native to the Terminus. The footprints he found leading away from the battle weren't from any race he recognized. If he didn't know better, he would have said they were quarian, but they were too deep. Even the heaviest set quarian didn't weigh that much.

Nihlus checked the intact bodies he found. They were charred and twisted as if they'd been hit by an electrical current, but the bullet holes were evident. Men. Women… Children.

_"You shouldn't be here." Nihlus mumbled half-asleep at the fingers that scratched along his neck._

_ "I'm here anyway." Her weight settled on his cot and he threw an arm around her waist, "Dreaming about me?"_

_ "Hardly," He forced himself awake, grazing his teeth on the ear beside his mouth, "There weren't enough explosions." _

The doors throughout the small neighborhood showed no signs of being blown open. Tech experts had made short work of the locks and dragged everyone outside, or further away. Away where? Nihlus checked the last house, and a small hand flopped out from underneath the bed. A child had hidden there during the attack. Blood was still flowing to pool beneath pale, uncalloused fingers.

_ "You're bleeding." Nihlus cursed himself, staring at the imprints his claws had left in her shoulders. She wasn't a turian, what the hell was wrong with him? _

_ Shepard went to wipe the blood off her bare shoulders, and smeared it across them instead. Bright, red, irrefutable proof that this would never work. Inconceivably, she smiled, "I didn't even notice." _

Nihlus pulled the small body out from underneath the bed. It was a young girl, with long golden locks dyed an ugly brown with her blood. Her stomach was shredded open, but miraculously, an omnitool scan revealed she was still alive. He reached for a pack of medigel when her eyes opened and fixed on him, wild with fear. She gasped once, but never screamed. Her body went limp and lifeless in his arms.

Shaking his head, he set her down gently and went back outside. There was hardly any sign of active resistance on part of the colonists, but then where turians kept small arms and explosives in their homes, humans actually believed in civilians. They may have been able to fight, but they wouldn't have known how.

He was about to head towards the dig site when he noticed signs of a scuffle in the dirt: a huge scuffle that ended in the enemies favor. It looked as if they'd dragged survivors in the opposite direction. Nihlus jogged along the path and came around the bend. The dirt road led downhill to a spaceport surrounded by more prefab units, a few them not smoking. The loading bay showed signs of movement, though whether that meant survivors he couldn't say.

"Change of plans, Shepard," He radioed in, "There's a small spaceport up ahead. I want to check it out. I'll wait for you there."

Nihlus brought his assault rifle up and locked it against his shoulder, then made a cautious advance.

"_You can't just go down there." Shepard. She'd followed him out of the comm room, and was prepared to make a scene in the mess. Thankfully, it was between meals and relatively empty. The few soldiers still there scattered. Their commander was known to be a walking time bomb with a short fuse and huge explosion radius. _

"_You should be readying your ground team." Nihlus said over his shoulder. Captain Anderson had already hinted to him he knew about the two of them. Scuttlebutt would spread through the ship like wildfire, and Shepard seemed all too willing to fan the flames. _

"_My ground team is ready," Shepard shot back, coming to stand directly in front of him. "We have to tell them about the ship, about-"_

"_I've already alerted the Council." Nihlus locked his guns to the back of his hardsuit, then glared down at the small human woman who'd trapped an armored turian in a corner. _

"_To hell with the Council!" Shepard snapped, clenching and unclenching her fists, "Who knows what we'll find down there." _

Synthetics. Quarian shaped synthetics were dragging humans down the hill, towards strange alien contraptions: hunched tripods, with a small spike emerging from the top. Some were already extended, long white thorns drenched with blood from their human victims impaled on the top.

He couldn't open fire with an assault rifle without risking the hostages. He flipped to his sniper and lined up a headshot almost as soon as it was fully extended. The headshot ripped through the synthetic's kinetic barriers and turned its robotic head into scrap metal. It stuttered and sparked, dropping the man it was carrying, and stumbled forward a few paces before its processor realized what had happened, and abruptly exploded.

Thankfully, the man had the good sense to roll away the moment the robot dropped him. He scrambled to his feet, and one of the remaining synthetics turned to open fire on the escapee. Nihlus lined up another shot and fired, taking the robot's arms off. White fluid too close to blood for comfort sprayed forth, and its alien gun clattered to the ground.

It turned a flashlight shaped head to its weapon, then back to Nihlus. It took a single step forward before a shot to the chest blasted it to pieces. Three more robots turned to face the threat. Two were carrying hostages. Nihlus fired on the enemy with no hostage, acutely aware of his lack of cover. The shot made it staggered and collapse, and an instant later a portable kinetic barrier popped up uselessly in front of its corpse.

One of the synthetics slung its hostage, a screaming human woman, over its shoulder, freeing up a hand for its assault rifle. It opened fire, and Nihlus dropped to one knee to make himself a smaller target. His kinetic barriers screamed at him as he wasted time lining up a shot that wouldn't hit the colonist. He took the creature's legs out from under it, and the woman flew free of its grasp. A second shot ended it, but there was one robot left.

… no there wasn't. The robot had thrown down its hostage rather than use it as a human shield, leaving it a clear target. For the other man. The first hostage had grabbed the synthetic's fallen weapon, and as soon as his fellow human was free, opened fire. The creature died in a burst of electricity, fire, metal, and white blood.

The humans clustered instantly around the only one of their kind with a weapon, wide eyed and quaking with fear. He didn't even make a pretense of keeping his guard up around his savior. Clearly a civilian. He flung the weapon from his hands as if it disgusted him.

"You saved us." The female whispered. "We-"

"Need to get out of here." Nihlus finished for her.

"No need to tell us twice." The man who'd taken up arms muttered. "I know a place where we can hide. If only we'd had the chance to get to it sooner." He cast a glance over his shoulder at his fellows who hadn't been so lucky and shook his head. No one else looked back.

The leader started herding them towards the neighborhood, when the woman grabbed Nihlus's arm as he was switching back to his assault rifle. "Thank you. Thank you so much. If you hadn't been here…" Tears spilled over her eyes, and she turned and ran to catch up with the others.

Nihlus shook his head in disbelief as he continued towards the spaceport. Synthetics. Quarian shaped synthetics. That could only mean geth, outside the Veil for the first time in two hundred years. What would geth want with the beacon? What would geth want with him and Shepard dead? The voice on the call to Terra Libera had been robotic, but geth couldn't speak, as far as Nihlus knew.

He was missing pieces. Maybe only a single piece. Something that would make all of this make sense.

"_We don't need to know what we'll find," Nihlus didn't try to move her out of his way. She wouldn't have let him. He stepped around her instead. "Intel does the best it can and soldiers do the rest." _

"_Damnit Nihlus-" Shepard grabbed his arm, five fingers wrapped around him like a vice. He looked down at her hand, then back into her crimson eyes, glistening with new emotions and expressions he didn't have time to memorize. Concern. Worry. Something else. _

"_What would you propose we do instead?" He stopped, waiting for an answer. It occurred to him his question wasn't rhetorical. He was actually waiting for her suggestion. Actually willing to go through with it. _

Nihlus passed by more spikes, and looked up despite himself. The bodies were slowly changing, growing paler as they were drained of blood. Beneath their skin, blue and black fluids poured into them from the spikes, for what purpose Nihlus could only guess.

They were impaled through their hearts and lined up side by side. All of them hung spread-eagle, heads bent back and mouths open as if they'd died screaming. Two dripping corpses were bent unnaturally, leaving their foreheads touching.

"_I don't know…" Shepard let go of his arm and ran her hands through her hair. "But that ship, whoever was on that ship, tried to have us killed. What are we supposed to do?"_

"_The mission." His answer came slower than he would have liked. Shepard nodded absently, but neither of them moved. After what seemed like an eternity, he turned himself towards the cargo hold when Shepard stopped him again._

"_Nihlus," He glanced back, half-expecting she'd come up with something, but all she did what was walk up to him and wrap one hand around his neck. He let her pull his head down to touch their foreheads together. _

"_What does this mean?" She whispered, closing her eyes. He wrapped a hand around her neck and tried to think of something that would translate, something romantic, or at least clinically detailed. _

_In the end, he gave up and closed his eyes too, "You know what it means." _

Nihlus shook himself. The two might have been lovers, friends, strangers, and he might never know. It didn't matter now. He made his way up the stairs of the spaceport to the loading bay, expecting more geth, more enemies, more colonists. Expecting anything but what he saw.

"… Saren?"


	25. Stardust

Stardust

Shepard was tired. More than tired, she was exhausted. Too exhausted to be angry, but she remembered she was supposed to be angry at someone for something. Angry at them for making her so tired.

_Get the hell out of here!_

It was unnaturally dark. Void. She struggled to open her eyes, before she realized her eyes were already open, and for some reason it didn't matter. Her eyelids felt heavy, her head felt heavy, everything was so heavy…

_Help me move him! Damnit, help me move him!_

She just wanted to sleep. She was tired. So damn tired of everything. If she could just go to sleep, just end this…

_There's still one way to end this. If you've got the guts. _

She couldn't sleep yet, and it annoyed her. Set her emotions back where they belonged. Anger. Anger was warm. Familiar. Anger kept her awake when she couldn't sleep alone.

_Commander, I heard you screaming and-_

_ And you thought you'd just walk into my room? Get the hell out. _

Even when she was alone, she still felt like someone wanted something from her. Someone was bothering her. Calling on her. Calling…

_Commander! Shepard!_

Joker. Steven. Anderson. Udina. If everyone would just go away, she could sleep. If everyone…

_The Council's waiting on us, Commander._

_ You two go on ahead. I'll be on walkabout. I just need time to… I need time_.

How much time had passed? How long had it been dark? How long had she been tired? How long had she been angry? If she could just remember. She felt like she was expecting something… expecting…

_You can expect me to kill you the next time we meet._

Why was she so angry? Why couldn't she remember what was behind the anger? Was there anything behind the anger? Why did she feel so hollow? She was angry and tired and… and nothing else.

_Commander? Shepard? Shepard!_

_What is it? _

_Sorry. You just… I guess you scared me. You've been sitting there for three hours…_

Hours. It didn't feel like hours. It felt like a year. Or a few seconds. Fuck, her head was so heavy. She couldn't remember. She could barely remember her name.

_What's your name, honey?_

_Doesn't matter. I just want to forget. You don't have to talk for that, do you? _

Talk. She hated talking. She didn't want to talk.

_At least talk about it. If not with me, then with someone. I know-_

_You don't know shit. Sir. _

What didn't he know? Why was it so hard to think, to remember anything?

_One hit of this and you won't remember a thing._

_Give me two, then._

_Can't say I expected the great Commander Shepard to be just like the rest of us junkies._

_Fuck you. _

Just like the rest of them. She was so sick of the rest of them.

_Commander? You okay?_

_I'm fine._

_You were staring into space again._

_Just a bad day._

It was worse than a bad day. Her head was heavy. She was cold. Her hands were cold.

_The medigel was little more than cold gel on her hands. It wasn't working. Of course it wasn't working. She ran her hands through her hair and the gel coated and stuck to her head. It wasn't working. Damnit it wasn't working. He was cold. He was so fucking cold. _

She was so cold. Cold. Shepard latched onto the sensation like a vice. It was the first thing that came to her outside of fatigue, anger, and fragmented memories.

_What's eating at you, Shepard?_

_Nothing._

_Bull. I don't even know you, and I can tell this isn't you._

_Am I the only one on this ship who keeps their personal life personal?_

_So it's personal? Alright. Fine. Keep it personal. But get your act together. You're better than this._

She wasn't better than anyone. She wasn't great. She wasn't even good.

_Do you have any idea how many regulations you've broken?_

_Too long, didn't read._

_Fine, Shepard. Be snide if it helps your façade, but I've read your psych evaluation- _

_Good for you._

_You wake up screaming, your sheets soaked with sweat-_

_Stop._

_You haven't had a decent meal or full night's sleep since Eden Prime. You're angry, you're furious, and that's fine-_

_I said stop._

_But you're taking it out on your crew. Whose competence are you really questioning, Shepard? Theirs or yours? _

_FUCKING STOP_

Stop. Everything stopped. Pain blasted through her, the cold became freezing, coated her lungs with ice and made every breath an agony. But there was no breath. Nothing but pain. Punishment.

_We're not trying to punish you, Shepard. Officially, this conversation didn't even happen, but we both know what did. This is the second time you've tied up the tribunal, arguing over whether to court marshal you or give you a medal. _

_Third._

_Glad you're keeping track. We both know you'll get the Medal of Heroism for everything you've done. But this isn't going to happen again, Shepard. _

_I'm not going to work a desk like-_

_Like me? No, you're not. But you are going on patrol for geth in the Amada system._

… _There hasn't been any sign of geth activity in that sector…_

_I know. _

What did he know? He didn't know anything. There hadn't been any geth.

_It wasn't supposed to be like this._

She wasn't supposed to be here. Cold. Angry. Alone. She was supposed to be on her ship…

The Normandy. The best of alliance technology and turian engineering. It showed what they were capable of when working together. They'd showed what they were capable of when working together. They. She wasn't alone. Wasn't cold anymore. Wasn't angry anymore.

Shepard smiled; she wanted to sigh in relief, but she couldn't quite gather the air to do so. It didn't particularly bother her. She was safe. The Normandy was safe. They were safe.

"Shepard, I was hoping you'd get here," A warm voice interrupted her. Her smile grew. Nihlus. Some small part of her felt as though he shouldn't be here. Or perhaps she shouldn't be here. She couldn't remember which or why. "We finally have a chance to talk,"

"What about?" She could have cared less. The debriefing room was comfortingly warm, as though someone had lit a fire. Strange.

"Where we're going," Vague. He was always vague. "I've heard it's quite beautiful."

"I wouldn't know." Shepard shrugged, unsure how she was talking. She had no air to form the words, but Nihlus didn't seem to notice.

He smiled and held his hand out to her, talons, teeth, and claws. They looked like sharp metal, shrapnel, fragments of a burning ship. She shook the illusion away. She was still safe. It didn't matter. Nihlus was here. She was here. The Normandy was here. She reached for his hand, and looked into his eyes for reassurance.

Everything fell apart. The eyes were blue. That was wrong. Nihlus's eyes were green.

"Change of plans, Shepard," Nihlus voice echoed sadly in her ears, and a blinding light burned his image away forever.

"Shepard, don't try to move," Her senses overloaded. Sounds came at her as though she were underwater, images swarmed before her eyes, the air she hadn't needed to breath suddenly and violently forced its way into her lungs. Everything was far too… far too alive. "Just lie still,"

Shepard panicked. Her hand flailed wildly in the blinding light. Looking for something that wasn't so bright, so burning, so painfully alive. Nihlus. If she could just take his hand, she could go with him.

"Try to stay calm," In her fervor, she couldn't breathe, and felt better for it. The voices panicked, grew more agitated, and then all at once grew quiet. The lights dimmed to the pleasant twilight of the Normandy, and the darkness welcomed her return.

The eyes loomed over her again… the wrong eyes. They were blue.

Nihlus was dead, and no matter how much she wanted to, they wouldn't let her die with him.

~*~Fin~*~


	26. Hypernova

Hypernova

~*~ Alternate Ending Requested by and Written for ZaeraDourden ~*~

~*~ Because nice reviewers are why we can have nice things ~*~

Damnit. Why hadn't she thought of something? A radio for back-up, a check in with the local garrison, anything but running in balls first and blind folded. Shepard cursed herself, and not for the first time that day. Geth. Fucking geth! Of all the things she'd been expecting – okay, so she hadn't really been expecting anything – crazed synthetics totting around weird alien impaling things were most certainly not one of them.

Anderson had ordered radio silence. Not hinted like he had about her and Nihlus, _perverted old bastard_, but outright ordered. She only had the occasional update from Nihlus to reassure her they both weren't going to end up zombie lovers like in his favorite horror movie.

Not five minutes in and she'd lost Jenkins, the poor kid. She should have scouted ahead instead of sending him to do it. She would have known to take the cautious route with more cover. She would have had stronger kinetic barriers. (She'd programmed hers to have more power in the front. If she was showing her back to an enemy, it was because she was already dead.) Then she'd have three people with her, not just two.

She shouldn't have been so hard on Williams, but damned if it wasn't like looking in a mirror, seeing the only surviving officer who'd gotten their squad slaughtered. How many times had that been Shepard? Two? If she lost Alenko and Williams, it would be three. She wasn't about to let that happen. She wasn't even going to think about what would happen if she lost Nihlus.

She must have been going mad. She had to be, if she was actually listening to a mad person. They'd stumbled across two surviving scientists who'd locked themselves in a prefab unit, one of them batshit insane. She'd half-listened as patiently as she could, and she wasn't a patient person. But when she'd asked them about Nihlus, the man had lost it, started babbling about a turian who'd killed them all, the bringer of chaos and destruction, to blame for this entire SNAFU.

She'd punched him. Williams had snorted, suppressing a laugh, but Alenko had all but thrown himself out the door in fear. Well, good. She'd seen a few lingering glances, and the sooner he lost interest, the better.

But now she felt batshit insane, too. She must have been, to be standing outside the prefab unit, disobeying a direct order from her superior officer.

"Nihlus." She radioed, pressing a hand to her helmet to signal for silence. Alenko's face rumpled in displeasure; Williams checked her gun disinterestedly.

"I read you," He replied almost immediately, "What's happened?"

"We found some survivors, there's not just geth," _Or maybe. Maybe not. You're going off a hunch, a mad man, and your own paranoia ever since you saw that ship_. "They said there's a turian working with them, maybe leading them. Just-be on your guard."

"I'm en route to the spaceport, they just saw me," He waved off her warning, and for some reason it made her blood run cold. "The only things here are geth and - … Saren?"

The comm went dead. Shepard signaled her team to move out, and started sprinting towards the spaceport. Saren. Why was that name familiar? She'd heard it somewhere bef-read. She'd read it somewhere before. That damn datapad.

Nihlus Kryik

/Here's everything I could find. Never say Johnny didn't do nothing for the Reds/

Known Aliases: Nihlus Kryik

Age: -Error: Redacted

Occupation: Citadel Council Operative; Branch: Special Tactics and Reconnaissance

Mentor: Saren Arterius

Father: -Error: Redacted ADDN: Deceased

Mother: -Error: Redacted

Siblings: N/A

Colony: -Error: Redacted ADDN: Mercenary Outpost; Outside Hierarchy Space

Legion: N/A

Error: Redacted

Notable Military Service

Error: Redacted

Personality Profile

Error: Redacted

Known Associates

Error: Redacted

Commendations and Miscellaneous

Error: Redacted

/ I knew you couldn't resist looking. I told you before, if you want to know something about me, just ask. I'm not going anywhere. /

It was the only part of the intel he hadn't deleted. She'd wasted good credits on what Nihlus had turned into little more than a blank datapad, save for that one line.

Saren was his mentor. His fucking mentor. He wouldn't see a thing coming. Shepard knew she wouldn't if she'd been in his place, and Steven had been a traitor instead of Saren.

Geth were waiting for them, guarding the spaceport. Bodies of the dead flung themselves off spikes and charged, wailing from the afterlife. "Payback," Williams whispered as she dropped to one knee, rested her assault rifle against her shoulder, and opened fire. Shepard decided she liked her. Yanking a grenade off her belt, she flung it towards the base of a spike as body dropped from it. The blast sent the undead corpse flying. Alenko's biotics did the same the others.

Shepard had to admit they made a hell of a team, her explosives and tech skills, Williams' firepower, and Alenko's biotics. They sent the husks back to the grave, and ripped through the geth like tissue paper.

When they'd cleared a path, Shepard saw Alenko glance towards the prefab units. He wanted to check for survivors, but they didn't have time. She waved them forward and ran down the hill, cursing her stride and her humanity. Turians ran faster. She could have reached the spaceport faster.

There was no movement. No geth. No nothing except-

"Commander," Alenko signaled, voice dropping to a whisper, "They got Nihlus."

Shepard spun to where he gestured with his pistol, to the red and black form slumped against a crate, limply clutching an assault rifle. Her legs slid out from under her as they tried for an abrupt halt and failed. She grabbed his shoulders with both hands and shook him, not thinking clearly.

She was a field medic. She'd had training, all of which flew out the window at the sight of Nihlus motionless in a pile of his own blood. She needed to run a scan, to find and staunch the bleeding, she needed to-

A ragged cough and three talons batted her hand away. She choked and swallowed, mute with relief, when a clatter from behind the loading crates drew Williams' and Alenko's attention away from them.

"He's still alive?" A frail human voice squeaked, and a dirty head peaked over the crates. "I saw-I thought-I just… If I'd known…"

"Now you do. Be useful and get a medkit." Williams snapped with what Shepard would have said if she could speak. Shepard definitely liked her. She'd have to apologize later.

Shepard felt detached from her body as she brought up her omnitool and ran a scan. He'd taken a shot to his shoulder, another to his stomach. She made short work of his armor – thank whatever deity would listen she'd had practice - and pressed her hand against the injury. She had to stop the blood flow, but all she had was a salve. She needed-

"H-here," The stranger stammered, dropping a medkit beside her. Idiot, she needed it-

Alenko bent down and opened it, his lips pressed in a tight line. She didn't bother to identify the expression; it seemed strange and alien on a human face.

Grabbing the syringe ready with a shot of liquid medigel, she bit off the cap and stabbed her turian with it. Shepard waited until the blood flow had slowed to a trickle before covering his stomach would with a salve, then twisted around him so she could do the same with his shoulder.

Her body brought up her omnitool and ran another scan, and only when it was complete did she feel like she was herself again. "What happened?" She breathed, air rushing painfully into her lungs. Had she been holding her breath?

"Saren-" Nihlus coughed, then coughed again. Then started laughing. "Saren." He laughed and shook his head, then kept laugh-coughing and shaking his head, hysterical.

"I-I saw it." The human spoke up. "I saw the whole thing."

The man, Powel, explained how he'd been hiding behind the crates, napping when the fight started, much to Shepard's and Williams' disgust. Nihlus and Saren had spoken, but Nihlus had seemed stiff and uneasy the whole time. He'd turned to take a glance around the spaceport, when Saren had insisted he had the situation under control, and pulled a gun on him.

Nihlus had been turning back, in the mist of saying, "No you don't." When he'd taken a shot to the shoulder and dove behind a crate, thankfully, Powel added, not his.

"I wish you hadn't been here, Nihlus." Saren levered his pistol, waiting for Nihlus to remerge.

"I could say the same," He'd thrown a grenade at his mentor and taken a shot to the stomach for it, before he'd fallen back against the crate and hadn't gotten back up.

"Argh!" Saren had snarled, and taken a few steps forward before he'd thought better of it. "You shouldn't have come here Nihlus. You know I can't let you leave. But I don't need to shoot you to kill you." He'd walked off towards the transit station to the far end of the spaceport, adding, "You have only yourself to blame for this, Brother." Before he'd left.

"What the hell does that mean?" Williams spoke up, glaring down Powel. She'd dragged out a confession of smuggling from him while he'd been getting the medkit, and looked ready to shoot the already traumatized man.

"Explosives…" Nihlus struggled to push himself up and slipped on his own blood. _Shit, he'd lost a lot_. He eventually managed to struggle back to his feet, supporting himself on the crates and he limped towards the tram station. Limped? What was wrong with his leg? What else had happened? Damn eye-witness reports.

"Williams, stay with him," Shepard fixed the Chief with a stare.

"Aye, aye ma'am," Williams nodded, purposefully loud over Nihlus's coughed protest, "We'll catch up," She added, but phrased it like a question, to which Shepard gave another nod and turned to the LT.

"Alenko, with me. Time to defuse this."

The two of them ran forward, slower without Williams' additional firepower, but still faster than they would have been if they'd had to wait on Nihlus. He was fine for now, but Shepard knew she wouldn't be able to finish the mission if she was worried about him.

So she left him with the stronger team member, and took the additional tech support to disarm the bombs they encountered, and fuck, were there a lot. They were a sweating mess of anxiety by the time they stumbled down the stairs from the last bomb. They took out another group of zombie-husks that had been left clustered around the beacon, and all but collapsed against each other.

Shepard radioed in the Normandy just as Ashley – was it Ashley already? - and Nihlus arrived. She breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at him. Nihlus cringed and tried to return the gesture.

Shepard turned around; she could barely look at him. He'd been so close to gone, if she hadn't radioed to warn him…

A hum filled her ears, a pulse gentle and rhythmic like the call of the sea, soothing her worries. Shepard blinked. It was coming from the beacon. Shepard relaxed, feeling more at ease the close she got to it. It calmed her, called to her… pulled her towards it. By the time she realized what was happening, she couldn't pull away. Her muscles tensed against her will, dragging her further towards the ancient relic, when strong arms wrapped around her waist and threw her out of the way.

Nihlus. No. Damnit, no! Not after she'd saved him, not after all this, not now. Shepard scrambled over herself to reach him, horrified as the relic took him in her place and left him suspended midair, lost to seizures and whatever the hell that damned beacon was doing to him.

Ashley grabbed her as she dove for him. "No! Don't touch him!" She insisted, "It's too dangerous!" Kaiden latched on to help hold her back, forcing her to watch until Nihlus collapsed, unconscious or dead.

Damn her. Damn him. What had she done? Ashley and Kaiden let go of her, and she crawled across the floor to pull his head into her lap.

Damnit, what had she done?


End file.
